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

To the man who reads ‚Scouting for Boys‘ superficially, there is a disappointing lack of religion in the book. But to him who tries it in practice, the basic religion underlying it soon becomes apparent.

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

The first book I ever really read was Plato’s ‚Republic,‘ and then I had to go over that five times or something.

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.

I’ve been reading tabloids since I was nine. I love a good story.

It’s very difficult to read a book on your computer.

A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

I think the reason I don’t read is because, when I’m reading, I feel like I’m missing out on something else. You know, What are my friends doing? Where’s my girlfriend?

Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‚the book lady.‘ The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the ‚book lady‘ title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I’ve done something good with my life and with my success.

Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island what book would I bring… ‚How to Build a Boat.‘

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

When you read, I’m sure you don’t realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don’t do that.

We’re news junkies in my house.

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.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.

If I like a thing, it just sticks after once reading it or hearing it.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all.

The press is the enemy.

Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.

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

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

Journalists are like dogs, when ever anything moves they begin to bark.

We’re all caught up in circumstances, and we’re all good and evil. When you’re really hungry, for instance, you’ll do anything to survive. I think the most evil thing – well, maybe that’s too strong – but certainly a very evil thing is judgment, the sin of ignorance.

If I’m honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don’t know and I don’t care.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

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

In books lies the soul of the whole past time.

I read to my kid, but I can’t stand reading.

The language of all the interpretations, the translations, of the Judaic Bible and the Christian Bible, is musical, just wonderful. 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.

Sadly, I do my homework. I’ve a soft spot for the boring minutiae. I read the Charter of the United Nations before meeting with Kofi Annan. I read the Meltzer report, and then I’ll read C. Fred Bergsten’s defense of institutions like the World Bank and the I.M.F. It’s embarrassing to admit.

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.

It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.

The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last one, even if it’s just a few notes in a file. I dread not having work in progress.

You’ve got to invest in the world, you’ve got to read, you’ve got to go to art galleries, you’ve got to find out the names of plants. You’ve got to start to love the world and know about the whole genius of the human race. We’re amazing people.

There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.

Most people wouldn’t know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.

More people should read books. It’s the most concentrated experience you can have.

Read a record number of books in a given month. If you’re focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.

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.

I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn’t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the warfighters to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy’s will are not allowed that luxury.

I read poetry to save time.

Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.

Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about ‚Wind in the Willows‘ and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought – you know about ‚The Wind in the Willows.‘