Top 100 We Read Quotes
#1. People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become.
Dan Chaon
#2. We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#3. We are all the people we knew; all the books we read; all the roads we travelled; all the mistakes we made; all the dreams we dreamed! We are ... We are all of them!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#4. The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the end of our story-book.
(Introductory lecture as professor of Latin at University College, London, 3 October 1892)
A.E. Housman
#5. This is what is so powerful about the Word of God. No matter how often we read it, we receive something fresh and new each time.
Wendy Blight
#6. We do not read the Bible somewhere off by ourselves in a corner; we read it as a community of faith, together with the whole church in all times and places.
Michael S. Horton
#7. We read to find ourselves, more fully and more strangely than otherwise we could hope to find.
Harold Bloom
#9. When we read Paul, we are reading somebody else's mail - and unless we know the situation being addressed, his letters can be quite opaque ... It is wise to remember that when we are reading letters never intended for us, any problems of understanding are ours and not theirs.
Marcus J. Borg
#10. Something outrageous, in the truest sense of the word, is always happening. On social networks, we're always voicing our reactions to these outrageous events. We read essays and 'think pieces' about these outrageous events. We comment on the commentary. We do this because we can.
Roxane Gay
#11. Why do we read biography? Why do we choose to write it? Because we are human beings, programmed to be curious about other human beings, and to experience something of their lives. This has always been so - look at the Bible, crammed with biographies, very popular reading.
Claire Tomalin
#12. We will be the same person in 5 years that we are today except for 2 things: the people we meet and the book we read
Charles Jones
#13. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.
Charlotte Bronte
#14. 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
#15. So much of what we read and write these days is disposable.
John Kasich
#16. ... forgotten friend Mushkin ... we read. Time had erased the never, and corrected the falsehood of man.
Anton Chekhov
#17. The Word of God we read is written not so much with ink as with the blood of the Son of God; or
John Calvin
#18. Scripture is a guide for conduct as well as the source of doctrine. Seven times in the book of Revelation we read this phrase: "He who has an ear, let him hear" (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). What we read in this book should govern our conduct.
David Jeremiah
#19. The human authors and editors of the Old Testament brought their own experiences and presuppositions to the task of writing. We don't often think about this when we read the Bible.
Adam Hamilton
#20. If we read the Bible asking first, 'What would Jesus do?' instead of asking 'What has Jesus done,' we'll miss the good news that alone can set us free.
Tullian Tchividjian
#21. Why do we smile? Why do we laugh? Why do we feel alone? Why are we sad and confused? Why do we read poetry? Why do we cry when we see a painting? Why is there a riot in the heart when we love? Why do we feel shame? What is that thing in the pit of your stomach called desire?
Benjamin Alire Saenz
#22. Now, where were we? Read me back the last line." " 'Read me back the last line,' " read back the corporal who could take shorthand.
Joseph Heller
#23. Our reading is always urged on by the instinct to complete what we read, which is, for some reason, one of the most universal and profound of our instincts. You
Julia Briggs
#24. Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
#25. We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.
John Gardner
#26. Every new book we read in our brief and busy lives means that a classic is left unread.
B.R. Myers
#27. We read many books, but that does not bring us knowledge. We may read all the Bibles in the world, but that will not give us religion. Theoretical religion is easy enough to get, any one may get that. What we want is practical religion.
Swami Vivekananda
#28. We read, I think, to repair our solitude, though pragmatically the better we read, the more solitary we become.
Harold Bloom
#29. If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?
Franz Kafka
#30. And that's what I really love, is finding a script and fantasizing and going to a different world and kind of portraying a character that is interesting. Because other lives interest us, that's why we read magazines like 'People' and try and fascinate and drool over what other people are doing.
Alex Pettyfer
#31. We read novels because we want to see the world through other experiences, other beings, other eyes, other cultures.
Orhan Pamuk
#32. We always get up about 5:30, and George gets up and goes in and gets the coffee and brings it to me, and that's been our ritual since we got married. And we read the newspapers in bed and drink coffee for about an hour probably, read our briefing papers.
Laura Bush
#33. We read to know we are not alone (obviously not mine but good)
C.S. Lewis
#34. For paradise in the world to come is uncertain, but there is indeed a heaven on this earth, a heaven we inhabit when we read a good book.
Christopher Morley
#35. I wonder what book signings will be like when most of the books we read are electronic. Will authors sign something else? A flyer, perhaps? A special kind of card devised for the purpose?
Susan Orlean
#36. If a man wants to be always in God's company, he must pray regularly and read regularly. When we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us.
Isidore Of Seville
#37. We read to find out what the world is like, to experience lots of lives, not just the one we live. If it is true that our lives are chaotic and we crave a shape, stories are the shapes that we put on experience, containing all the wisdom in the world. We can even choose what kind of wisdom suits us.
Ramona Koval
#38. I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing.
[The Guardian, 15 October 2013]
Neil Gaiman
#39. In Scripture we read of two kinds of men-the spiritual man controlled by the Holy Spirit, and the "carnal" man who is ruled by his passions.
David Jeremiah
#40. Remember that we remember very little! 10% of what we read or hear 50% of what we hear and see 80% of what we say 90% of what we say while doing For
Imran Umar
#41. Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only.
Agnes Smedley
#42. I tell myself it does not matter what one reads
favorite authors, particular themes
as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.
Helen Simonson
#44. We are all products of our environment; every person we meet, every new experience or adventure, every book we read, touches and changes us, making us the unique being we are.
C.J. Heck
#45. We read advertisements ... to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready - even eager - to discover, from the announcement of a new product, what we have all along wanted without really knowing it.
Daniel J. Boorstin
#46. What's more likely? That the writer of the tale we read last night was inspired by a rock that just happened to be shaped like a giant head, or that this head-shaped rock was really a giant?
Ransom Riggs
#47. How can we read when people need our help? It's a luxury. A stupid luxury.
Gary Shteyngart
#48. I don't understand. How does reading stories about others answer those questions for me?" "That is what I'm hoping you will understand - every story we read, Sang Ly, is about us, in one way or another.
Camron Wright
#50. Reality's kind of a medium, maybe greater than paper. We all want life to have the same texture that we read about in novels.
Why The Lucky Stiff
#51. Just a thought.
What sets us above all other life on this planet is our ability to read. What we read can determine our relationship with all other life on this planet.
M.J. Croan
#52. Any time that we read a script and the 'Leverage' team has to infiltrate a place, assume identities, or become con artists ourselves to take down the really bad con artists, it's always fun to do that.
Timothy Hutton
#53. He thinks I'm like him, Mazer realized. That's what we do as humans; it's how we read minds. We assume that other people think like we do. So if we're nasty and suspicious and conniving we assume that everyone is as nasty and suspicious and conniving as we are.
Orson Scott Card
#54. We read, frequently if not unknowingly, in search of a mind more original than our own.
Harold Bloom
#55. The test of real literature is that it will bear repetition. We read over the same pages again and again, and always with fresh delight.
Samuel McChord Crothers
#56. I pulled word after word from my core, like silk for a spider's web, spinning a make-believe life. That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones? - Minka (The Storyteller)
Jodi Picoult
#57. We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.
Abraham Lincoln
#58. We read novels. We read hundreds of pages of words, when the story is good because we're willing to stay there. I hope the story is good. I'm going into this venture thinking that the audience is really smart and really wants to hear all the nuances of what we're saying.
Veena Sud
#59. We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.
Alain De Botton
#60. If you're reading to find friends, you're in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities.
T.C. Boyle
#61. We read that men are born equal, but that is no reason forgiving them all an equal vote. (Actually, we probably read that men are born equal. Born equal carries an implication that they do not remain equal for long.)
Anonymous
#62. Most scholarly books we read for the information or insight they contain. But some we return to simply for the pleasure of the author's company.
Michael Dirda
#63. We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's like secret adult's business. It's the secret we never, ever tell our children. No adult ever read a book because it's good for us. We read because it is fun.
Jackie French
#64. When we read, we are doing more than delectating words on a page stories, characters, images, notions. We are communing with the mind of the author.
Martin Amis
#65. So many of us, we love these things that come from Japan. We play the video games every day, we read the manga, people watch the cartoons, they absolutely love it.
Yaya Han
#66. Codifying discrimination in our laws should be something we read about in American history, not on the front pages of today's American newspapers and magazines.
Dannel Malloy
#68. I take a real interest in the possibilities of teaching - including the practice of bringing creative writing, and serious reading, into the classroom. I am persuaded that since language is alive, much of the challenge has already been met by the poets and novelists we read.
Michael Cadnum
#69. We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.
Carl Sandburg
#70. Always be reading something, he said. Even when we're not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.
Ali Smith
#71. One misconception is that if we follow God in the life of faith, and that means obedience - that we read His Word, we're obedient, we pray, we go to church, we do the right things - that somehow His blessing means we're going to be okay.
Anne Graham Lotz
#72. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries.
Virginia Woolf
#73. If we read the Word and do not pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge, without the love that buildeth up. If we pray without reading the Word, we shall be ignorant of the mind and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical, and liable to be blown about by every wind of doctrine.
D.L. Moody
#74. We read a lot of books. Children's books mostly, because they're always much more truthful than adult books. And much more entertaining, said Mrs. Bunny.
Polly Horvath
#75. Most of us live in two worlds -- our real world and the one we build or spin for ourselves out of the books we read, the heroes we admire, the things we hope to do.
Julia L. Sauer
#76. Very few people ever meet celebrities. All we really know is what we read about them and the most memorable lines are jokes. That's how we tend to define what we think of a public figure.
Robert Orben
#77. We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel ... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.
Ursula K. Le Guin
#78. We are the books we read and the things we love.
Cath Crowley
#79. Reading is the gateway to so many things that helps makes it possible for seven billion people to live together on one planet. Literature is the great extra-somatic keeper of our knowledge of what it is to be human. Reading elevates us. We read to be our best selves.
Nicola Griffith
#80. We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang.
George R R Martin
#81. What is Gujarat? You and I are Gujarat, friends! If we read, Gujarat will read. Let us all read. Where there are 5.5 crore Gujaratis, that is my Gujarat and where each Gujarati reads, that is my Vanche Gujarat. Let us move forward with this fervour.
Narendra Modi
#82. In the light, we read the inventions of others; in the darkness we invent our own stories.
Alberto Manguel
#83. When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.
Blaise Pascal
#84. We write in response to what we read and learn; and in the end we write out of our deepest selves.
Andrea Barrett
#85. We read books. They make us think. It matters very little whether we agree with the books or not.
Robert Henri
#87. Abraham's servant prayed for success: "O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham" (Gen. 24:12 NASB). This is the first time in Scripture that we read of someone asking God for specific guidance.
Gary L. Thomas
#88. Every time we linger in bad company whose insidious influence we know we cannot resist, every time we lie in bed when we ought to be up and praying, every time we read pornographic literature, every time we take a risk which strains our self-control, we are sowing, sowing, sowing to the flesh.
John R.W. Stott
#89. The words we read and words we write never say exactly what we mean. The people we love are never just as we desire them. The two symbola never perfectly match. Eros is in between.
Anne Carson
#90. I have become so used to having people say, 'We loved your movie' instead of 'We read your book' that now I merely say, 'Thanks.'
Charles R. Jackson
#92. After all, that's why we read historical fiction-to be transported to another time, and to be astonished at ancient people's lives and traditions, just as they would probably be astonished at ours.
Michelle Moran
#94. The truth is that every book we read, like every person we meet, has the capacity to change our lives. And though we can be sure our children will meet people, we must, must create, these days, their chance to meet books.
Susan Cooper
#95. I always believed that there is meaning only in what emanated from the very pages we read.
Anuradha Bhattacharyya
#96. I remember thinking that people were crazy for reading the same book more than once, but I now have a new-found appreciation for the re-discovery of literature. The lessons we learned from books in the school curriculum are reinvented and updated when we read as adults.
Rachel Nichols
#97. I really believe we read differently when we know even the most banal facts of an author's life.
Anne Michaels
#98. The children to whom we read simple stories may or may not show gratitude, but each boon we give strengthens the pillars of the world.
Maya Angelou
#99. I was raised in the church by my grandmother who made sure we went to Sunday School, read the Bible and went to church every Sunday. Every night we read Bible stories before we went to bed.
Torii Hunter
#100. We read each other through our eyes, and anatomically they are an extension of our brains. When we catch someone's eye, we look into a mind.
Siri Hustvedt
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
