“Up, and at my chamber all the morning and the office doing business, and also reading a little of L'escholle des filles, which is a mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to inform himself in the villainy of the world.”

“There's nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become a part of you, in a way that words in a book you've read only once can't.”

“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. She read books as one would breathe ether, to sink in and die.”

“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.”

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”

“Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read that book.”

“I shall keep my book on the table here, and read a little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good, and help me through the day.”

“Reading ideas improves,
reading stories entertains,
reading the news informs,
reading books teaches,
reading the song rhymes”

“He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Mankind; which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be only to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration.”

“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read. For instance, if you are walking in the mountains, and you don't read the sign that says "Beware of Cliff" because you were busy reading a joke book instead, you may suddenly find yourself walking on air rather than on a sturdy bed of rocks. If you are baking a pie for your friends, and you read an article entitled "How to Build a Chair" instead of a cookbook, your pie will probably end up tasting like wood and nails instead of like crust and fruity filling. And if you insist on reading this book instead of something more cheerful, you will most certainly find yourself moaning in despair instead of wriggling with delight, so if you have any sense at all you will put this book down and pick up another one. I know of a book, for instance, called The Littlest Elf, which tells the story of a teensy-weensy little man who scurries around fairyland having all sorts of adorable adventures, and you can see at once that you should probably read The Littlest Elf and wriggle over the lovely things that happened to this imaginary creature in a made-up place, instead of reading this book and moaning over the terrible things that have happened to the three Baudelaire orphans.”