I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.
Margaret AtwoodThe decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThis report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
Winston ChurchillThis is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.
Virginia WoolfReading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.
Margaret AtwoodDon Quixote’s misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.
Franz KafkaIn the book of Gaga, fame is in your heart, fame is there to comfort you, to bring you self-confidence and worth whenever you need it.
Lady GagaThere is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
George WashingtonI never liked Hans Christian Andersen because I knew he was always getting at me.
J. R. R. TolkienLiterature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.
Virginia WoolfBrevity is the soul of wit.
William ShakespeareShakespeare didn’t work at all for me.
Charles BukowskiOf course, there are those critics – New York critics as a rule – who say, ‚Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer.‘ Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.
Maya AngelouReading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.
Arthur C. ClarkeFrom a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the ‚Pilgrim’s Progress,‘ my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes.
Benjamin FranklinConfidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.
Haruki MurakamiBooks like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
Samuel JohnsonI’ve written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence, human emotions.
Carl SaganTo a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.
Henry David ThoreauI dislike Allegory – the conscious and intentional allegory – yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language.
J. R. R. TolkienYou don’t read in your own field. You read in that field when you’re young, so that you can learn.
Ray BradburyBooks can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
Henry David ThoreauReligion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.
Christopher HitchensYou cannot open a book without learning something.
ConfuciusI’m always reading the next book. Taking notes. Highlighting, researching, studying. It doesn’t stop.
Jocko WillinkYou see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it’s always just one person encountering the book, it’s not an audience, it’s one to one.
Paul AusterEvery book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.
Stephen KingIf literature isn’t everything, it’s not worth a single hour of someone’s trouble.
Jean-Paul SartreMy father… removed from Kentucky to… Indiana, in my eighth year… It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up… Of course when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher… but that was all.
Abraham LincolnIt is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.
Virginia WoolfIdeally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
Mark TwainI don’t believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.
Isaac AsimovI want to challenge you today to get out of your comfort zone. You have so much incredible potential on the inside. God has put gifts and talents in you that you probably don’t know anything about.
Joel OsteenThe problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it’s a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.
Dr. SeussEvery now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.
J. K. RowlingI am not a fan of books.
Kanye WestBut by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.
Ho Chi MinhOne must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson‚For Whom the Bell Tolls‘ was a problem which I carried on each day. I knew what was going to happen in principle. But I invented what happened each day I wrote.
Ernest HemingwayThe true university of these days is a collection of books.
Thomas CarlyleI don’t know if she should worry too much, I mean some of our greatest writers have had movies made of their books, lots of Hemingway novels were turned into movies, it doesn’t hurt the book.
Paul AusterIf you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?
Steven WrightUpon books the collective education of the race depends; they are the sole instruments of registering, perpetuating and transmitting thought.
Harry S. TrumanI think I work much harder on the children’s books. I suppose I enjoy that. I find it interesting that although there are more than 30 books in the Discworld series, it is the four that were written for children which have won the awards. I’ve never been quite certain why this is.
Terry PratchettReading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.
Arthur SchopenhauerThe first book I ever really read was Plato’s ‚Republic,‘ and then I had to go over that five times or something.
Huey NewtonMore people should read books. It’s the most concentrated experience you can have.
Vivienne WestwoodIt’s not easy to define poetry.
Bob DylanTo 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.
Robert Baden-PowellMost rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.
Frank ZappaAs 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.
Terry PratchettAt Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Christmas story. A young mother and a dutiful father with their baby were joined by poor shepherds and visitors from afar. They came with their gifts to worship the Christ child.
Queen Elizabeth IIAfter all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.
Albert CamusIf 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!
William Makepeace ThackerayGive me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.
William ShakespeareGood friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Mark TwainIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Charles DickensYou’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.
Dr. SeussThe ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.
Robert FrostWith all of their benefits, and there are many, one of the things I regret about e-books is that they have taken away the necessity of trawling foreign bookshops or the shelves of holiday houses to find something to read. I’ve come across gems and stinkers that way, and both can be fun.
J. K. Rowling