A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I’ll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I’m crepuscular.

I think the definition of a book is changing.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

‚The Lady’s World‘ should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women’s opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure.

I just feel that ‚The Color Purple,‘ which was my 10th book, was a true gift from my ancestors.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

When you’re young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound.

The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

The story as told in The Odyssey doesn’t hold water. There are too many inconsistencies.

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.

Certainly I’m not going to sit on the Internet all day and read what Sam from Iowa is saying about me. But I’m a sponge. I’ve always been a sponge.

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.

The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That’s one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.

All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.

If I’m the people’s poet, then I ought to be in people’s hands – and, I hope, in their heart.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

Once you publish a book, it is out of your control. You cannot dictate how people read it.

While working on my first five books, I kept wishing I was writing a novel. I thought until you wrote a novel, you weren’t taken seriously as a writer. It used to trouble me a lot, but nothing troubles me now, and besides, there has been a change. I think short stories are taken more seriously now than they were.

When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It’s not my business whether people like or dislike it.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

I read poetry to save time.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I’m in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight times.

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.

The mere brute pleasure of reading the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

I’ve never known any trouble than an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.

I dislike Allegory – the conscious and intentional allegory – yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language.

Millions of students now, in all the schools of America, are reading science fiction and especially, thank God, ‚The Martian Chronicles.‘

Little by little, not by making big promises, I need to be calmer, read more, spend more time with my loved ones, and be more mindful about nature and environment.

I never liked Hans Christian Andersen because I knew he was always getting at me.

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.

I’m the only person you’ve ever met who has read Longfellow.

I cannot read a single word of the Hindoos without being elevated.

When I was 10 years old, I loved – I loved books, and I used to haunt the secondhand bookshop. And I found a little book I could just afford, and I bought it, and I took it home. And I climbed up my favorite tree, and I read that book from cover to cover. And that was Tarzan of the Apes. I immediately fell in love with Tarzan.

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

I try to read as much as I can. I try to read an informative article every day. I try to stay read up on our world issues.

I spent my childhood in the country and started reading even before going to school. There was nothing else in my life but sketching and reading.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

There would be no Sherlock Holmes if it were not for serial publication.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this – death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.