To Read English Quotes

#1. You have taught yourself to read English, too," Pepe said slowly to the boy; the girl suddenly gave him the shivers, for no known reason. "English is just a little different - I can understand it," the boy told him,

John Irving

#2. All the youth now in England of free men, who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to it, be set to learn as long as they are not fit for any other occupation, until they are able to read English writing well.

Alfred The Great

#3. I decided to apply to read English at the University of Oxford because it was the most impossible thing I could do.

Jeanette Winterson

#4. If somebody's going to earn citizenship, with whatever other hurdles are put in the way, at the end of the road they should be able to speak English, they should be able to read English, they should have some knowledge of American history,

Rudy Giuliani

#5. A lot of them [Germaqn actors] could come in and we could speak for the next nine hours in English and there would be no problem. It was - but it was - English wasn't the language for them to read poetry in. And there is a - there's a poetic quality to my dialogue.

Quentin Tarantino

#6. This year my goal will be to learn new vocabulary in English and to read as much as possible books.

Deyth Banger

#7. She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.

Jeffrey Eugenides

#8. Catch-22 is the greatest satirical work in English since Erewhon ... remarkable ... This is a book that I could wish everyone to read. It is a book which should help us feel more clearly

Philip Toynbee

#9. I went to University College London and read English literature, then realised if you were interested in story and narrative, film was the way to go.

Alison Owen

#10. I've seen the odd tarot reader and had my palm read in various countries and explained to me in many strains of broken English. Did I believe a word? To be honest, I didn't understand much, but I loved watching the presentation.

Simon Baker

#11. Before college, I hadn't voluntarily read anything that might be called literature; I didn't think I'd understand it; I never seemed to understand my English teacher's interpretations of what we read.

Melissa Bank

#12. But why," he said with animation, "do the English not read their own great literature?"
Victor laughed triumphantly, and said, "Because at school they are made to hate it.

Olaf Stapledon

#13. I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke bad English without the author's knowing it.

Edith Wharton

#14. I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is.

Maya Angelou

#15. 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

#16. You are, without doubt, holding in your hands one of the best-introduced books in the English language. We hope you enjoy the Introduction to the New Edition that follows this Introduction to it and continue to read on even into the book itself.

Douglas Adams

#17. Well, the man who first translated the bible into English was burned at the stake, and they've been at it ever since. Must be all that adultery, murder and incest. But not to worry. It's back on the shelves.

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

#18. I'm fully aware," Firth told a reporter for the English magazine Now, "that if I were to change professions tomorrow, become an astronaut and be the first man to land on Mars, the headlines in the newspapers would read: 'Mr. Darcy Lands on Mars.

Colin Firth

#19. The only thing I can say that is wonderful about my mother is she forced me to learn three verses of the Bible every day of my life, and I've read the Bible now five times and it taught me the English language.

Bryce Courtenay

#20. For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.

C.S. Lewis

#21. A translation needs to read convincingly. There's no limit to what can go into it in terms of background research, feeling, or your own interests in form and history. But what should come out is something that reads as convincing English-language text.

Jonathan Galassi

#22. The English-Speaking world is divided into those who have read 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' and those who are going to read them.

SUNDAY TIMES

#23. I studied English literature in the honors program, which means that you had to take courses in various centuries. You had to start with Old English, Middle English, and work your way toward the modern. I figured if I did that it would force me to read some of the things I might not read on my own.

Jeffrey Eugenides

#24. The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell.

Henry David Thoreau

#25. All that gleaming leather and gold stamping and beautiful type belongs in the pine-panelled library of an English country home; it wants to be read by the fire in a gentleman's leather easy chair--not on a secondhand studio couch in a one-room hovel in a broken-down brownstone front.

Helene Hanff

#26. Is the professor who insists we read Ernest Hemingway again instead of Gertrude Stein "obsessing"? Because although I did a BA in English, an MFA in Poetry, and a year's worth of a PhD, Stein was an author I had to discover on my own. She wasn't on the syllabus anywhere in all that time.

Laura Mullen

#27. When I was living in China, I learned to make things hyper-explicit because often they were being read by people whose command of English kept them from picking up what I thought were obvious signals.

James Fallows

#28. I grew up thinking that because I couldn't read, I was stupid and would never amount to anything. I worked my way through college as a waitress and thought I wasn't capable of doing anything else. My grades in English were horrible, and I barely got through.

Suze Orman

#29. One English nobleman and statesman read and reread a particular work of literature because it was the only book which allowed him to forget politics.

Barbara W. Tuchman

#30. I had English grammar book and started to teach myself. I read 'Catcher in Rye,' in Russian. I was amazed at freedom in 'Catcher in Rye!' Freedom to have those perceptions of life!

Roustam Tariko

#31. And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it.

Cornelia Funke

#32. I do feel fortunate to have some knowledge of the great Latin American writers, including some that are probably not that well known in English. I'm thinking of Jose Maria Arguedas, whom I read when I was living in Lima, and who really impacted the way I viewed my country.

Daniel Alarcon

#33. Maybe because I began as a writer, I have a good ear for dialogue, and maybe being an English major - and that I also read a lot as a kid - if I hear somebody say something that I think's funny, or I find a situation or story, I'll try to work that into the movie.

Owen Wilson

#34. The average college graduate's proficient literacy in English [the ability to read lengthy, complex texts and draw complicated inferences] has declined from 40 percent in 1992 to 31 percent ten years later.

Charles Colson

#35. I had really good English teachers in elementary through high school. Not only were we required to read a lot - which is the best training for writing - we were drilled on grammar every day, every night. I hated the drill part, but I don't dangle my participles too often.

Carol Berg

#36. I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over.

David Eddings

#37. A writer who wants to write good stuff needs to read great stuff. If you don't read widely, or read only writers in fashion at the moment, you'll have a limited idea of what can be done with the English language.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#38. Of course, it is boring to read about boring thing, but it is better to read something that makes you yawn with boredom than something that will make you weep uncontrollably, pound your fists against the floor, and leave tearstains all over your pillowcase, sheets, and boomerang collection.

Lemony Snicket

#39. It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

Kurt Vonnegut

#40. English, unlike Hebrew, is read from left to right - as are clocks. The concepts of clockwise and counterclockwise are universal, irrespective of alphabet.

Joshua Cohen

#41. I read 'the Hobbit' at the age when you're supposed to read it. I didn't read 'The Lord Of The Rings.' My father, who was an English teacher, advised me that once I had read 'the Hobbit,' that would be enough. I could then move on to Dostoyevsky.

Ken Stott

#42. To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to read in college English courses - to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life.

David McCullough

#43. He was thirty-six years old, and six foot three. He spoke English to people and French to cats, and Latin to the birds. He had once nearly killed himself trying to read and ride a horse at the same time.

Katherine Rundell

#44. After I'd been in college for a couple years I'd read Shakespeare and Frost and Chaucer and the poets of the Harlem Renaissance. I'd come to appreciate how gorgeous the English language could be. But most fantasy novels didn't seem to make the effort.

Patrick Rothfuss

#45. When I was in school, in eighth grade, someone recognized something in me. She was an English teacher, and we read a play out loud in class, and she asked me to read one of the roles. I'd never done anything like that before, but something just lit up.

David Morse

#46. Problem was, all this is new. In English at school we study a grammar book by a man named Ronald Rideout, read Cider with Rosie, do debates on fox-hunting and memorize 'I Must Go Down to the Seas Again' by Jason Masefield. We don't have to actually think about stuff.

David Mitchell

#47. I was a terrible reader as a kid. I mean terrible. Super slow and very unfocused. It took me forever to read a book, and I remember being well into high school and still needing my mom to sit down and read aloud to me so I could pass my English tests and such.

John Corey Whaley

#48. To read makes our speaking English good.

Joss Whedon

#49. So much of the literature we had to read for high school English class was filled with victimized, tragic, symbolic women who spurred the plot forward with their inevitable shunning/death/shunning-followed-by-pregnancy-followed-by-death timelines.

Libba Bray

#50. A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#51. I don't come from a family of readers - in fact, my parents are unable to read the books in English.

Christopher Castellani

#52. Many of the books I read, I had to read them in French, English, or Italian, because they hadn't been translated into Spanish.

Antonio Munoz Molina

#53. I am not sure that the best way to make a boy love the English poets might not be forbid him to read them and then make sure that he had plenty of opportunities to disobey you.

C.S. Lewis

#54. When I was about 13 or 14, I had an English teacher who made a deal with me that I could get out of doing all of the year's regular work if I would write a short story a week and on Friday read it to the class.

Victor Salva

#55. I wish more Italian literature were translated and read in English. I've discovered so many extraordinary and diverse writers: Lalla Romano, Carlo Cassola. Beppe Fenoglio, Giorgio Manganelli, just to name a few.

Jhumpa Lahiri

#56. I have never been particularly good with languages. Despite a dozen years of Hebrew school and a lifetime of praying in the language, I'm ashamed to admit that I still can't read an Israeli newspaper. Besides English, the only language I speak with any degree of fluency is Spanish.

Joshua Foer

#57. Always have a book to read, instead of indulging in vain conversation. Strive to learn English ... Remember this, that you cannot commit some loved sin in private, and perform the work of the ministry in public, with facility and acceptance.

Christmas Evans

#58. I saw a film today, oh boy,
The English army had just won the war,
A crowd of people turned away,
But I just had to look, having read the book ...

The Beatles

#59. I must confess, my Spanish is not so good - except I read a little, so I started with the English but then determined that it would have to be in Spanish.

George Crumb

#60. I had to read Wuthering Heights for English and I never enjoyed a book in all my life as much as that one.

Marlon Brando

#61. English is only a weak second language, so that the third language
which at the moment is getting the most play, since French is what I speak, read, and hear almost 24/7
is trying to take over the no. 2 spot.

Apol Lejano-Massebieau

#62. I believe in some parts of Nietzsche,
I prefer to read him in sections;
In my heart of hearts I suspect him
of being the one modern christian;
Take notice I never have read him
except in English selections.

Ezra Pound

#63. Readers have told me that their children have learned to read after years of struggle after starting to read Garfield's comic strip and many people who have moved to the United States have said that they, too, learned English by reading Garfield.

Jim Davis

#64. the English explorer Richard Burton told the story of an Englishman finding his new wife unconscious on the marital bed, having chloroformed herself. She had pinned a note to her nightdress which read: 'Mama says you're to do what you like.

Sam Miller

#65. I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and - if he is lucky enough - know the love of an honest woman.

Robert Graves

#66. It's an absurd error to put modern English literature in the curriculum. You should read contemporary literature for pleasure or not at all. You shouldn't be taught to monkey with it.

Rebecca West

#67. I did really well at school, and I would have loved to have gone to Oxford or Cambridge. I would have read English, and I'm really interested in politics.

Emma Rigby

#68. Probably no theologian in English language has ever rivaled Owen stressing the absolute centrality of Christ's penal substitution and therefore his as Priest ... For that reason alone The Priesthood of Christ is worth all the time it takes to read it with humility, care, and reflection.

Sinclair B. Ferguson

#69. I said I was an English major, that I wanted to write someday, that I read the way other people ate chocolate.

Francesca Lia Block

#70. I'm a writer to the bone. I love this language you and I read, write and speak. It's called English. And I'm seriously doubting that it's known to some of the unseen people who write the news.

Ann Medlock

#71. One of the less vaunted joys of Austen is that she is one of the greatest writers in the English language who also happened to write witty romance novels. Women enjoy the love stories in Austen the same way men read Hemingway for the hunting and fishing: it provides guiltless pleasure.

Alessandra Stanley

#72. In a talk at a recent Phi Beta Kappa meeting, Duke University professor Katherine Hayles confessed, "I can't get my students to read whole books anymore."10 Hayles teaches English; the students she's talking about are students of literature.

Nicholas Carr

#73. I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning, for that is sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He'll get better books afterwards.

Samuel Johnson

#74. You can learn Elvish, if you want. It's a language like Italian and English. You can learn to read it, you can learn to write it, and you can learn to speak it.

Christopher Lee

#75. To become an American citizen, we require people to read, write and speak in English. That is to help them to assimilate in our melting pot, truly to become Americans. We mock that when the cherished right to vote does not involve English any more.

Ernest Istook

#76. Book clubs are totally dope - like English class if you were allowed to read only books that you actually like and snack and sip while discussing them.

Sam Maggs

#77. As a student in England, I studied French and English literature. I read L'Etranger and the rhythm of the novel felt familiar to me - very African.

Sefi Atta

#78. I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.

Gordon Getty

#79. I love to read. I was in AP English in high school, and we were assigned books every few months. 'Moby Dick' and 'The Great Gatsby' are two of my favorite ones.

Spencer Boldman

#80. I am especially indebted to a 10th grade English teacher who encouraged me to read great works of literature.

Samuel Alito

#81. I listen a lot to how people speak. I've read a great many good books in my life. I had some excellent English teachers. Surely, those things were helpful.

Anthony Bourdain

#82. You have already achieved the English-Language poet's most important goal: you can read, Write and speak English well enough to understand this sentence.

Stephen Fry

#83. I love to write, and I love to read too, but that doesn't mean I like to write about reading - 'cause nothing ruins the fun of reading a good story like the evil English army of Discuss, Analyze, and that hideous duo Compare and Contrast.

Kevin Emerson

#84. I spent many years in grad school in English, so I've read a lot in a variety of genres. But adventure fantasy is my bread and butter as a reader, and probably always will be. So it's only natural that I came to that genre as a writer.

Saladin Ahmed