“You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book.”

—  John Waters

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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John Waters photo
John Waters 37
American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer 1946

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“You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you.”

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Source: Night Shift

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“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”

Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

Misattributed

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“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Actually a statement by Joseph Brodsky, as quoted in The Balancing Act : Mastering the Competing Demands of Leadership (1996) by Kerry Patterson, p. 437.
However, compare to the similar Bradbury quotes from 1993 (Seattle Times) and 2000 (Peoria Journal) above.
Misattributed

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement (1967)
Context: A profound judgment of today's riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, 'If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.' / The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos.

Thomas Wolfe photo

“The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer
Emil M. Cioran photo

“To have committed every crime but that of being a father.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies.”

Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet

"On Delany the Magician", a foreword to Trouble on Triton (1996) by Samuel R. Delany, and reprinted in Acker's collection Bodies of Work (1996)
Source: Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia
Context: Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies. Aeneas did. Odysseus did. Listen to Delany, a prophet.

William Styron photo

“A good book should leave you…. slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.”

William Styron (1925–2006) American novelist and essayist

Interview in Writers at Work, First Series (1958), edited by George Plimpton
Variant: A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.
Source: Conversations with William Styron

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Variant: I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.

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