“Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West.”

— E.M. Forster

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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E.M. Forster 200

English novelist 1879–1970

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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

“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