Top 100 On Reading Quotes
#1. Read, read . . . and then read some more. Read everything you can get your hands on! Reading to a writer is as medical school is to a doctor, as physical training is to an athlete, as breathing is to life.
Andrew Joyce
#2. I'm not big on reading directions. I can't do that. I'm just not from that world.
Richard Dean Anderson
#3. I'm not big on reading business books. I get copies of all of them, because people want me to put a comment on the jacket. Every once in a while, I'll get interested and read one all the way through.
James Goodnight
#4. Children deprived of words become school dropouts; dropouts deprived of hope behave delinquently. Amateur censors blame delinquency on reading immoral books and magazines, when in fact, the inability to read anything is the basic trouble.
Peter S. Jennison
#5. To lend a book is an incitement to theft.
A Reader on Reading p. 281
Alberto Manguel
#6. I usually doze off between 7:30 and 9 p.m. while putting my baby to sleep. Then I suddenly wake up remembering I'm an adult with no bedtime. I spend the next four hours catching up on reading, e-mails, and other adult pursuits until I collapse for good until sunrise.
Padma Lakshmi
#7. A tight pace has nothing to do with explosions or car chases. It has everything to do with creating a compulsion to keep on reading, even when your reader has other things she really ought to be doing.
Libbie Hawker
#8. Inviting children as gospel learners to act and not merely be acted upon builds on reading and talking about the Book of Mormon and bearing testimony spontaneously in the home.
David A. Bednar
#9. Imagine a group of people all staring at writing on a wall, everyone congratulating one another on reading the words correctly. But behind that group is a mirror whose image shows the writing's true message. No one looks at the mirror. No one thinks it's necessary.
Anonymous
#10. If you can make the reader laugh he is apt to get careless and go on reading.
Henry Green
#11. The American people thoroughly despise and hate their newspapers; yet they seem to have no idea what to do about it, and take it for granted that they must go on reading falsehoods for the balance of their days!
Upton Sinclair
#12. Friend let this be enough. If thou wouldst go on reading. Go thyself and become the writing and the meaning
Angelus Silesius
#13. Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library.
John Waters
#14. On reading the first part of Anthony Powell's four-part masterpiece, 'A Dance to the Music of Time,' I was struck by one of the characters - an irritating peripheral character- who keeps showing up in the main protagonist's life.
Rebecca Pidgeon
#15. I felt a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English.
(on reading the Cynewulf lines about the star Earendel)
J.R.R. Tolkien
#16. Just go on reading, as well as you can, and be sure that when the children get the thrill of the story, for which you wait, they will be asking more questions, and pertinent ones, than you are able to answer.
Arthur Quiller-Couch
#17. To be successful, suspend your worries and your analytical thinking and just concentrate on reading the script as it is without any self-judgment.
Forbes Robbins Blair
#18. We as authors sign a pact with our readers; they'll go on reading because they trust us to play fair with them and deliver what we've promised.
Pamela Glass Kelly
#19. He goes on reading, and remembers nothing. So what has this stranger come to tell him? To remind him that he used to live here under Josef's name?
Milan Kundera
#20. And I went on reading; and, since if you read enough books you overflow, I eventually became a writer.
Terry Pratchett
#21. Authors go on writing books, and so we go on reading them. It is a sad state of affairs.
Elizabeth Aston
#22. How sweet is that? I know I'm no boy expert, but I have heard entire lectures on reading body language, and I have to say that assuming that a person will have forgotten your name is way high on my "indicators of humbleness" list (not that I have one, but I totally have a starting point now).
Ally Carter
#23. It was at this time that she entirely gave up on reading.
The covers of books looked like coffins to her, either shabby or ornate, and what was inside them might as well have been dust.
Alice Munro
#24. The journey that 'In Praise of Slowness' has made since publication shows how far this message resonates. The book has been translated into more than 30 languages. It appears on reading lists from business schools to yoga retreats. Rabbis, priests and imams have quoted from it in their sermons.
Carl Honore
#25. I keep on reading the Morning Star newspaper to see if there's any hope, but it seems to be in the 19th century; it seems to be written for dropped-out, middle-aged liberals.
John Lennon
#26. Cicero said that even if his lifetime were to be doubled he would still not have time to waste on reading the lyric poets.
Edward Hirsch
#28. For those of you who are about to embark on reading The Math Book from cover to cover, look for the connections, gaze in awe at the evolution of ideas, and sail on the shoreless sea of imagination.
Clifford A. Pickover
#29. Beach reading: Planning on reading, but failing relentlessly due to the heart-stirring view.
Malak El Halabi
#30. You know how the best story angles often spring from that thought you have on reading an article or watching a show - that thought you have before the responsible journalist in you comes up with something boring. I usually recommend people get in touch with their deep 'reptilian brain.'
Nick Denton
#31. The only big drawback to writing is its negative impact on reading.
Michael Kroft
#32. I don't take up the story and follow it as if it were a road, taking me somewhere ... I go into it, and
move back and forth
and settle here and there, and stay in it for a while. It is more
like a house.
Alice Munro on reading.
Alice Munro
#33. You go into the office and take a book or two from the shelves. You read a few lines, like your life depended on reading 'em right. But you know your life doesn't depend on anything that makes sense, and you wonder where in the hell you got the idea it did; and you begin to get sore.
Jim Thompson
#35. Let's get it over and the door closed shut on it! Let's close it like a book and go on reading! New chapter, new life.
John Steinbeck
#36. I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the first few pages, I'm like, 'Gah, this obviously isn't a proper book. Why would I want to carry on reading it?'
Sophie Hannah
#37. In spite of his physical efforts, he understands that he is afraid to go on reading the typescript. Why this fear should have taken hold of him is something he cannot account for. It's only words, he tells himself, and since when have words had the power to frighten a man half to death?
Paul Auster
#38. All prizes have a role, if they are run with integrity and with a clear focus on reading and quality writing. I don't think any of them is necessary, but they all play an incredibly important role in building a body of literature, in introducing new authors to new readers, and extending reading.
Kate Mosse
#39. Keep on reading, thinking, doing and writing!
Words keep introducing their friends to you.
Toba Beta
#40. Don't allow people to define you based on reading the abstract of your story without even reading chapter 1. Continue to write the remaining chapters.
Assegid Habtewold
#41. I discovered fantasy and science fiction when I was about 10, and read nothing else for about three years. I ran out of all the books that there were to read in the library. I was keen on reading stuff that took me to other places.
Terry Pratchett
#42. Literacy in North America has historically been focused on reading, not writing; consumption, not production.
Clive Thompson
#43. We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
B.F. Skinner
#44. Every time I am reading actors I can pretty well tell which ones have studied with Meisner. It is because they are honest and simple and don't lay on complications that aren't necessary.
Arthur Miller
#45. I'm 52 years old, which means I'm of an age where my reading habits are more or less set. I read plenty of stuff on line but I rely on pretty traditional sources. I'm a newspaper reader, whether in hand or on my iPad.
Michael Wilbon
#46. Read. Read as if your life depended on it because your life as a novelist does.
Louise Doughty
#47. How can you be so nice to me and how can you forgive me when I've been such a jerk?"
Maddy appears to think for a moment. "When you are reading a book and you finish a chapter, you don't keep re-reading the chapter you just finished. You move on to the next chapter to see what happens.
Stephen Reid Andrews
#48. I was improvising before I was reading music. I was just trying to play things on the clarinet by ear. I think my ear is one of my greatest assets.
Pete Fountain
#49. Sponsored stories are not a great way to monetize mobile traffic. The phone is way more of a publishing tool than a reading tool. The attention users pay to the streams on mobile is far less than on the desktop.
Keith Teare
#50. Sally was on the first floor reading a book, one that she normally wouldn't read, and she felt quite guilty. Twilight. She knew the series was ridiculous but everyone was going crazy over the books and the movies. She'd finally given in and decided that it wouldn't hurt to just read a little bit.
Anjela Renee
#51. My love of reading and the English language is something given to me by my parents, and I've passed it on to my children.
Corin Tucker
#52. I'm totally active. I am just this side of hyper. I jog and go to the gym every day. When I'm on the computer, I'm reading, I'm writing, I'm never quiet. My brain is very rarely not engaged. Every now and again I will fall asleep under the parasol in the sun, but that's a rarity.
Suzi Quatro
#53. The saying "the cherry on top" is only a good metaphor if the person listening or reading actually likes cherries on top of their ice cream.
Christopher Jones
#54. Growing maturity is marked by the increasing liberties we take with our travelling ... we made the discovery (some people never make it) that real books can be taken on a journey and that hours of golden reading can so be added to its other delights.
C.S. Lewis
#55. Being in front of an audience makes me feel alive. Being with friends makes me feel alive. I've done some crazy stuff in my time and yet I can feel infinitely alive curled up on a sofa reading a book. So, what makes me feel alive? I guess it's realizing I am part of the world around me.
Benedict Cumberbatch
#56. To use an electronics analogy, closing a book on a bookmark is like pressing the Stop button, whereas when you leave the book facedown, you've only pressed Pause.
Anne Fadiman
#57. It means they engineered the spirit to have a negative effect on the imagination.
S.A. Tawks
#58. Usually I decide on what it is I'm writing next by the books I'm reading.
Kate Mosse
#59. I took on a year of reading books for a reason. Because words are witness to life: they record what has happened, and they make it all real. Words create the stories that become history and become unforgettable. Even fiction portrays truth: good fiction is truth.
Nina Sankovitch
#60. I don't have a lot of time. I can give a poem a couple of lines, a short story a paragraph, and a novel a few pages, then if I can stop reading without a sense of loss, I do, and I go on to something else.
Flannery O'Connor
#61. Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of perspicuity in the story and the delight and entertainment of our candid reader.
Sarah Fielding
#62. From a really young age, I was reading like a writer. I was reading for the deep understanding of the literature; not simply to hear the story but to understand how the author got the story on the page.
Jacqueline Woodson
#64. Mr. Kaplan is the first traveler to take us on a journey to the jagged places where these tectonic plates meet, and his argument
that our future is being shaped far away 'at the ends of the earth'
makes his travelogue pertinent and compelling reading.
Michael Ignatieff
#67. I'm not the type who spends his free time in training camp playing with his Playstation or playing cards on trips. The other players thought it was odd: There he is, reading again.
Oliver Kahn
#68. I rely on Taegan Goddard's Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It's an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.
Craig Newmark
#69. It's just a matter of writing the kind of book I enjoy reading. Something better be happening at the beginning, and then on every page after, or I get irritated.
Jonathan Franzen
#70. Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called Life on a Little Known Planet. It's about insects. It will make you feel better.
David McCullough
#71. A man awakes every morning
and instead of reading the newspaper
reads Act V of Othello.
He sips his coffee and is content
that this is the news he needs
as his wife looks on helplessly.
B.J. Ward
#72. I grew up on Stephen King, reading the books. I love the small town, 1950s feel to it, that nostalgia, and that old America. What happens when something weird starts happening to all these people, something other-worldly, something demonic?
Alexander Koch
#73. I believe we should spend less time worrying about the quantity of books children read and more time introducing them to quality books that will turn them on to the joy of reading and turn them into lifelong readers.
James Patterson
#74. I decided I wanted to go to Cambridge, and then I got introduced to Fred Sanger. I was very conscientious, and I asked him when I first got there if I should start reading up on things. But he said, 'No, I think you can just start these experiments,' so I plunged right in.
Elizabeth Blackburn
#75. Anything John Stott says is worth listening to. Anything he writes is worth reading. Basic Christianity is not only a classic must-read for every believer; it is truly a blessing preserved on the written page for the enrichment of this generation and those to come.
Anne Graham Lotz
#76. Mine is to chew on the appropriate texts and make them delectable.
Gregory Of Nyssa
#77. The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue ...
Bruno Bettelheim
#78. I like reading reviews. If they're clearly hating on you, I try not to read that deeply. But if they really are trying to understand, it's interesting.
Jon Favreau
#79. Time to wake up." Rick muted the TV when a commercial came on. He slipped on his reading glasses and asked, "What is the groundnut better known as?" Lydia carefully rolled onto her back so the cat wouldn't be disturbed. "The peanut.
Karin Slaughter
#80. I was reading a magazine when I was a little kid, probably about twelve years old, and an ad said that if you sell so many jars of Noxzema skin cream, we'll sell you a ukulele. So I went out and banged on doors in the snow in Quincy, Massachusetts, where I was raised, and I sold the skin cream.
Dick Dale
#81. Hopefully you're on the edge of your seat when reading WUWPOO. That's my favorite reading position.
S.N. Deinscheiss
#83. I cannot stand Tolstoy, and reading him was the most boring literary duty I ever had to perform, his philosophy and his sense of life are not merely mistaken, but evil, and yet, from a purely literary viewpoint, on his own terms, I have to evaluate him as a good writer.
Ayn Rand
#84. He wished he were home in Charleston, listening to the Dave Brubeck Quartet on the stereo and reading Bruce Catton.
Dan Simmons
#85. Tell me what a man does in the matter of Bible-reading and praying, in the matter of Sunday, public worship, and the Lord's Supper, and I will soon tell you what he is, and on which road he is travelling.
J.C. Ryle
#86. While reading Emotionally Wounded Spiritually Strong washing clothes taday I got up to page 52-54 and I had to stop for a sech it brought tears to my eyes to think how the devil had a plan on my family from the beginning. How PPL thought we were the perfect family. Thank God for Jesus.
Tarran Carter
#87. I did a film that's on YouTube of me reading hate mail with a woman playing the cello in the background.
Richard Dawkins
#88. Which meant I spent my spare time learning theory, studying dead languages and reading books like Essays on The Metaphysical by John "never saw a polysyllabic word he didn't like" Cartwright.
Ben Aaronovitch
#89. I've reread 'The Secret Garden' every year as an adult. I have a battered copy on my bookshelf - it's really quite a mess! The experience of reading the novel keeps deepening for me.
Ellen Potter
#90. Only a true reader will understand how lovely it is to read a book on rainy days.
Nicholaa Spencer
#91. So she spends until about eleven A.M. reading, re-reading, and understanding the new changes in the Project. There are many of these, because this is a Monday morning and Marietta and her higher-ups spent the whole weekend closeted on the top floor, having a
Neal Stephenson
#92. Society has definitely gotten to the point where everybody has to comment on anything, and if you want to stay sane as a performer, you're better off not reading that stuff.
Doug Benson
#93. It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map.
J.K. Rowling
#94. I'm not sure that when I read 'Treasure Island' for the first time, when I was about 10, I understood all the words or what was going on. But that didn't stop me reading it, and I certainly didn't forget it.
Mal Peet
#95. I sense that I am dawdling in this narrative, having already reached my eighth roll of Hieratica, and need to speed it up a little, else either I shall die on the job, or you will be worn out reading.
Robert Harris
#96. She really needed to stop reading romantic suspense because now horror stories from authors like Shiloh Walker were on her mind and a little too vivid for what she needed at the moment.
Carrie Ann Ryan
#97. Having had this kind of binge reading relationship with online content for 15 years we're starting to think 'Hang on, we only have finite time and there is infinite content'.
Seb Emina
#98. I found myself facing a Christian Science Reading Room. My God! It had been eight years. There had never been any renunciation of religion on my part, but like so many people, it was a gradual fading away.
Henry Fonda
#99. I do like to keep abreast of what the hardcore vocal members of the comics-reading audience are talking about on Internet message boards, but there are so few of them, as a percentage of the buying audience, that I can't allow their opinions to dictate story direction.
Grant Morrison
#100. No subject of study is more important than reading ... all other intellectual powers depend on it.
Jacques Barzun
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
