Quotes About Why I Read

#1. I've always been interested in family secrets and what happens behind closed doors. I find that fascinating and creepy - that's why I read: because I want to know other people's secrets.

Ottessa Moshfegh

#2. That's why I read so much. A book isn't going to hurt me. A book isn't going to form some opinion about me that could wreck my life. I learn about so many new and great things from reading. I keep to myself with a good book and a shot of whiskey and I'm right with the world.

Paulette Mahurin

#3. I want to know why I read as a child with such a frantic appetite, why I sucked the words off the page with such an edge of desperation.

Francis Spufford

#4. I suppose if I had to give a one-word answer to the question of why I read, that word would be pleasure. The kind of pleasure you can get from reading is like no other in the world.

Wendy Lesser

#5. Why I read that?? Watch that??
Listen to that?? Be a part of that??
YOu are like asking why do I even live... okay... okay!
It's not so far, but I do it to have what to share around the people to show people as examples and to feel glad about what I know and I will learn.

Deyth Banger

#6. I think part of why I have so many books around me and why I read every day is because I mythologize the writer. I don't do that with any other artists.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

#7. Pilgrim's Progress , about a man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough.

Mark Twain

#8. But this is exactly why I read
and don't belong to a book group
because reading is the most individual thing there is. Why collectivize it? Didn't we have enough bad English teachers in school? Crowd sourcing and literature shouldn't mix.

Peter Orner

#9. That's why I read, as a stranger,
My being as if it were pages.
Not knowing what will come
And forgetting what has passed,
I note in the margin of my reading
What I thought I felt.
Rereading, I wonder: "Was that me?"
God knows, because he wrote it.

Fernando Pessoa

#10. This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.

Carol Shields

#11. We tell each other stories to help each other live. That's why I read poetry. I read poetry to stay alive. That's why I went to poetry in the first place, that's why I stay with it, that's why I'll never leave it.

Marie Howe

#12. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind ... and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That's why I read so much Jon Snow.

George R R Martin

#13. I never wanted to become an actress because I'd read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did.

Julie Walters

#14. I have a problem with the strip that runs along the bottom of the news programs. Don't these idiots who run the news programs know we don't want to read? That's why we're watching TV.

Jerry Seinfeld

#15. How about your favorite book?" "This Side of Paradise by From. Scott Fitzgerald." "Why?" "Because it was the last one I read.

Anonymous

#16. Oh! No, I only mean what I have read about. It always puts me in mind of the country that Emily and her father travelled through, in The Mysteries of Udolpho. But you never read novels, I dare say?" "Why not?" "Because they are not clever enough for you - gentlemen read better books.

Jane Austen

#17. But the main reason you should read this is that I don't see why I should have to know all these terrible, terrible things and you should get off scot free.

David Strorm

#18. Why are people so afraid of thinking? Why don't they ever leave time to reflect? There's nothing wrong with tranquility; nor emptiness, vertigo, or even unhappiness. I think that these things are the first steps to precede the birth of a new thought. This is why I like to read.

Almudena Solana

#19. The Language Laboratory at Cambridge is a very good way of finding out about grammar and the vocabulary and that's why I learned to read German and later on I added Spanish, the standard European languages.

Clive James

#20. I really, honest to God, didn't know what to read until I was out of college and living in Boston, and someone said, 'Well, why don't you read Hemingway?' And I thought, 'OK. I guess I'll try this Hemingway fellow.'

Tom Drury

#21. They say we fear only what we don't understand. And, indeed, it's very hard to understand why doormen and ushers are so important, so arrogant, and so majestically impolite. When I read serious articles I feel exactly the same vague fear.

Anton Chekhov

#22. People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on marketing research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.

Steve Jobs

#23. I think Alice Miller's Drama of the Gifted Child is one of the books read by nearly every therapist. Everyone's jaw drops when they read Miller's dead-on description of why we became therapists. (...) I wish more people were familiar with her work.

Ryan Howes

#24. She spun a hundred-eighty degrees at the end of the passageway, landed like an acrobat beside the drum hatch. "The reason. Why something would attack us even if we didn't have anything it wanted." I read it off her: "If it wasn't attacking at all. If it was defending itself.

Peter Watts

#25. But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story?

Jimmy Connors

#26. The millionaire says to a thousand people, 'I read this book and it started me on the road to wealth.' Guess how many go out and get the book? Very few. Isn't that incredible? Why wouldn't everyone get the book?!

Jim Rohn

#27. I'm kind of concerned about 'Ego & Hubris' because I'm thinking that people will read it and maybe even be entertained by it, but at the end of it, you know, they'll wonder, 'Why did this guy write this? What was the point of it?'

Harvey Pekar

#28. None of the books were in alphabetical order, which made it necessary to cock my head sideways to read each one of the spines. By the end of the third shelf I began to realize why librarians were sometimes able to achieve such pinnacle levels of crankiness: It's because they're in agony.

Alan Bradley

#29. I'm aware of 'Twilight,' but I've never seen the movies or read any of the books. Frankly, the story leaves me cold - why do a vampire story about abstinence?

Alan Ball

#30. But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn't fit together. As I read Scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first.

Shane Claiborne

#31. This is why I can't be with Levi. Because I'm the kind of girl who fantasizes about being trapped in a library overnight-and Levi can't even read.

Rainbow Rowell

#32. They were chanting my name, but I don't know why. My name is on the back of my uniform. So, it's nice to know they can read.

Lance Berkman

#33. I like Disney stuff. No-one looks at 'Toy Story' and says,' Oh, that's just for kids.' Why is it that games can only appeal to a certain audience, but movies and books - I mean, how many adults read 'Harry Potter?'

Warren Spector

#34. I think that's why I love to read. I'll read almost anything - mystery, suspense, slice of life - but what I really love is romance. Contemporary is good, Historical is better, Paranormal is the best.

S.T. Prussing

#35. I have to say I do read partly for escapism. Why can't I escape and learn something?

Christopher Bollen

#36. They put it like that?' said Glenda, wide-eyed.
'Oh, you know the sort of thing if you read the papers a lot,' said Ponder. 'I seriously think they think that it is their job to calm people down by first of all explaining why they should be overexcited and very worried.

Terry Pratchett

#37. What we read and why we do so defines us in a profound way. You are what you read, I suppose. Browsing through someone's library is like peeking into their DNA

Guillermo Del Toro

#38. From what I've read, everyone has a claim on Merlin. Was he Scottish, Welsh, English or even French? All these countries have got a big claim on him and Camelot. That's why the Arthurian legends are so popular - because they are such good stories.

Colin Morgan

#39. If there's a good review, I'll skip over the headline, but I always find the bad reviews and read those. I don't know why. It's a little sick and demented.

Damien Chazelle

#40. You read stuff about yourself and you think, My God, where are these people coming up with these things? Why am I the one that they're picking on?

Shannen Doherty

#41. Why does it help to read others' stories? It is not only that misery loves company, because (I learned) misery is too self-absorbed to want much company. Others' experiences did help with my emotional struggle ...

David Sheff

#42. At first I was glad for the help. My freshmen English class, "Mythology and Archetypal Experience," confounded me.
I didn't understand why we couldn't just read books without forcing contorted interpretations on then

Alison Bechdel

#43. Why would I talk about the past when I got a bright future? What kind of money is the past gonna make me? Everyone wants to know information. Now, if you wanna know information, if you want history, you're gonna read a history book. The past ain't gonna make you no cash.

Riff Raff

#44. Instantly, I step forward. "Why are you mad?" I cry out.

"Why wouldn't I be, Emilia? I open up my fucking soul to you, and you blew it to pieces.

Calia Read

#45. You read about poor people having Botox go wrong and you think: 'Well, what the bloody hell were you doing?' Why would you inject yourself with poison? And why are we spending so much time looking at ourselves? I just don't get it.

Imelda Staunton

#46. The longer I wait the more reasons I can think of why it means something other than what I thought it meant when I first read it.

Chris Crutcher

#47. I mean, that's at least in part why I ingested chemical waste - it was a kind of desire to abbreviate myself. To present the CliffNotes of the emotional me, as opposed to the twelve-column read.

Carrie Fisher

#48. Armies aren't very good about carrying libraries with them. I can't imagine why. We'd fight so much less if everyone would juste sit down and read

Cynthia Hand

#49. I read in hopes of little sparkling moments that are going to turn my head inside out.

Jo Walton

#50. I read what I'd written and thought once again: from what violent chasms is my most intimate intimacy nourished, why does it deny itself so much and flee to the domain of ideas? I feel within me a subterranean violence, a violence that only comes to the surface during the act of writing.

Clarice Lispector

#51. I'd like to do the young cadet thing again for sure, but that's why I wanted to do this, to see if I could do it. I took the scenes out of the script and put them together and read them as one little arc, story and that seemed to work.

Scott Speedman

#52. I don't know why I always feel like crying when I'm around him. When I think about him. When I read about him. It's like my emotions are still tethered to him somehow and I can't figure out how to cut the strings.

Colleen Hoover

#53. A book is the one place you're permitted to feel emotion; anywhere else you're expected to be professional.
And you ask me why I like to read...

Suzanne Steele

#54. When I read about how 200 people died on a polar expedition, I wonder why they didn't get to know the Inuit people who were around and presumably know something about surviving in the Arctic after living there for thousands of years. Talking to people is a survival mechanism.

Tim Cahill

#55. O why do I ever let anyone read what I write! Every time I have to go through a breakfast with a letter of criticism I swear I will write for my own praise or blame in future. It is a misery.

Virginia Woolf

#56. When I started writing, I was reading people such as Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton, who did 'Jurassic Park,' which is possibly the most action-filled book you'll read, apart from mine, and I said to myself, 'Why aren't these guys doing big-scale action like you would see in a movie?'

Matthew Reilly

#57. The knock came at the door, and I blew out the match, bolted over to the bed, and fanned out my dress. Why yes, Maxon, this is how I always look when I read.

Kiera Cass

#58. I think most Native American literature is unreadable by the vast majority of Native Americans. Generally speaking Indians don't read books. It's not a book culture. That's why I'm trying to make movies. Indians go to movies; Indians own video recorders.

Sherman Alexie

#59. There are movies I've seen or books I've read that attach themselves in a way that's greater than the ability to understand why. How do you explain that kind of connectedness?

Peter Riegert

#60. If I had caused any trouble worth mentioning, you would have read about it in 'Star' magazine, which is probably why I didn't cause any trouble worth mentioning.

Danica McKellar

#61. That's why I wrote this book: to show how these people can imbue us with hope. I read somewhere that when a person takes part in community action, his health improves. Something happens to him or to her biologically. It's like a tonic.

Studs Terkel

#62. I'm fascinated by Buddhism. I adore Buddhism, and I read about it all the time, but I haven't formally become a Buddhist, although I don't really know why I haven't. I guess I feel I don't need to.

John Burdett

#63. Much-derided chick lit, chick flicks, and chick magazines have left ambitious women in a bind. Why is it that I, a young woman, can read 'GQ,' enjoy 'Fight Club,' and subscribe to 'Thrillist,' while the idea of a guy doing the same with 'Glamour,' '27 Dresses' and 'Daily Candy' is nearly unheard of?

Kathryn Minshew

#64. Did you read the instructions?" He shook his head. "Why, were you afraid they'd take your man card away?" "Are you going to help me or just make fun of me?" "Can't I do both?

Ilona Andrews

#65. Why not?' She asks the most challenging questions that a woman can ask. 'Why should I not read? Why should I not think? Why should I not speak?

Philippa Gregory

#66. Why should I have to ask you? You're a grown man! You should just know!
And there it is, kiddies. The Famous Female Mind Fuck.
That's short for: If you can't read their minds? You're fucked

Emma Chase

#67. If a context and a goal is defined I could say if it's good or bad. But overall I don't view things as good or bad. So I'm like a robot or computer in that sense. So maybe that's why people don't think they know me when they read my writing.

Tao Lin

#68. I don't think she is underappreciated, certainly not among writers, but Alice Munro is the classic underappreciated writer among readers. It is almost a cliche now to wonder why this living legend is not more widely read.

Khaled Hosseini

#69. While I don't read the same thing every day, you know, tonight I am reading some of the speeches of the early unionist fathers." "Why ever would anyone want to do that?" "I don't know. I don't even know if I want to read them. I'm just reading them.

Anonymous

#70. I do know that I've read somewhere that it's been statistically proven that in times of war, horror films are much more popular. I don't know why that is. You'd think it'd be the opposite. You'd think people would want to escape from it.

Aaron Stanford

#71. My whole thing is that I want to explore why you read books, what's the purpose of reading, and maybe that it's not that cool to hate something just because it's popular.

Josh Radnor

#72. Why I love the ancients so much? Aside from everything else, when I read them, the entire past between them and me unfolds at thesame time. The hearts of how many heroes and poets may have been set on fire by Plutarch's biographies which now inspire me with their own and with borrowed flames!

Franz Grillparzer

#73. Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills. I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn't like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife.

Juliet Marillier

#74. I read recently that I was born in Arizona. I wasn't born in Arizona. I was born in New Mexico, but I can understand why people might confuse those two Southwestern desert states.

Baron Vaughn

#75. I play guitar; you'll find me at home strumming 'Vincent' on the guitar. I also read a lot of poetry, and Shakespeare was my first love, which was why I got into acting. A lot of the fighters are intelligent!

Dave Legeno

#76. Why didn't adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and smugglers and dangerous fairies? I

Neil Gaiman

#77. The great thing about Twitter is, you get a lot back, and I read through a lot, and I want my fans to know that I do read a lot, and it's why I do respond or retweet clever posts, and I'm constantly amazed by the cleverness of people on Twitter.

Elizabeth Banks

#78. The funniest thing is I never understood why actors were so shady about who they're dating. Then I realized the things you say get printed and the people you're involved with read them. That's what's tricky. Nothing goes unnoticed. I don't want to get myself in trouble!

Emily Meade

#79. Why the brevity? Because I'd rather people read my book twice than only half-way through

Mohsin Hamid

#80. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I've read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks.

Paul Graham

#81. I think solitude is a really positive thing. I cherish solitude immensely. In today's society, there's so much pressure to communicate, eat out, be friends with people. Why can't you read a book on your own? Why have you got to have a book club?

Nicky Wire

#82. In fact, every day I'll read a chapter of some art book. I don't know why. It's just a habit.

Sylvester Stallone

#83. I don't know why so much nonsense about age is written - although I can certainly understand that no one really wants to read anything that says aging sucks.

Nora Ephron

#84. I read hugely as a child, but I slowed up when the print got smaller. I am a very slow reader. I don't know why. Maybe it is like some people chewing their food for ages and some wolfing it down.

Geraldine McCaughrean

#85. I read this book once that said we meet the people we need to meet when we're ready for them. Maybe that's why we met. To try and help each other figure out who we are now.

Holly Jacobs

#86. Even if I take him out for three hours every day, and go and chat to him for another hour, that leaves twenty hours for him all alone with nothing to do. Oh, why can't dogs read?

Nancy Mitford

#87. I would never require anyone to read any book. That seems antithetical to why we read - which is to choose a book for our personal reasons. I always shudder when I'm told my books are on required reading lists.

Amy Tan

#88. I used to read the criticism on blogs about other people - mostly female actresses and singers - and even when they are extremely perfect and harmless, people still go after them. So I figure, if I'm going to get negativity regardless, why do I have to worry about what somebody thinks of me?

Kat Graham

#89. I don't give any book a big chance. If it isn't interesting from the get-go, I let go. Sure I paid for the book, but I don't have to pay more in my time to read a book that bores me. If I don't enjoy reading it, why read it? For my original investment in the book? That's silly.

Jon Spoelstra

#90. I got interested in the question of literacy because writers are always moaning about why more people don't read books.

Robert Hass

#91. And on my fourth morning in Naples, I woke up alone. There was a note on the table with the breakfast that Cinzia had quietly prepared for me. It read, "It could never be. But that's why it will always be - perfectly divine. Cinzia"
City Solipsism: A Short Story

Zack Love

#92. Well if you already know how the story goes, why do you need me to read it to you?"

" 'Cause I wanna hear it!

Ted Chiang

#93. I've had that conversation! "You had a minute! Why didn't you do that?" So if husbands could read our minds that would be great.

Mila Kunis

#94. You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?
I will tell Him that His press agents could have done with a writing lesson or two, I said. To myself.

Jennifer Donnelly

#95. It's really unfair to working women in America who read celebrity news and think, 'Why can't I lose weight when I've had a baby?' Well, everyone you're reading about has money for a trainer and a chef. That doesn't make it realistic.

Rachel Zoe

#96. My job is not to talk smack about anything. This is why I dislike strongly doing magazine articles: My personality does not translate to print. People don't read it as sarcasm, and it just comes off badly.

Sandra Bullock

#97. That's why I write fiction, because I want to write these stories that people will read and find universal.

Jesmyn Ward

#98. That's what books do, isn't it? That's why I love to read. They bring us closer to ourselves.

Lisa Scottoline

#99. The philosophy I always have is what's the sentence that would tell me about each shot. If I can't read why the shot's there, what is the story trying to say?

Jennifer Lee

#100. I never read the paper myself. Why bother? It's the same old shit day in and day out, dictators beating the ching-chong out of people weaker than they are, men in uniforms beating the ching-chong out of soccer balls or footballs, politicians kissing babies and kissing ass.

Stephen King