I had not expected ‚A Brief History of Time‘ to be a best seller.

Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

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.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

I’ve written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence, human emotions.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.

On one of my last days at school, the headmaster said I would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. That was quite a startling prediction, but in some respects, he was right on both counts!

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

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

My mother insisted that her children read.

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

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two – to fix your opponent’s expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get – only with what you are expecting to give – which is everything.

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

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd.

I have a big following among the biogeeks of this world. Nobody ever puts them in books.

I don’t know if I officially proofread my father’s book, but I read it. I did get some conception of grammar in general from that.

People are always coming up to me and saying, ‚I heard your dad’s speech, and it’s really great.‘ And they’ll mention some place I didn’t even know my dad was going to.

Let us read and let us dance – two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.

I try to do something the audience might not have seen before. Like if I’m gonna kiss a girl I wanna kiss her like a girl has never been kissed. Like maybe I would kick her legs out from under her and catch her right before she hits the ground and then kiss her.

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.

I could speak three languages when I was six, and when I went to school, I only liked to read and sketch. At five, I could write and everything.

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

I’ve loved reading all my life.

The cool thing about reading is that when you read a short story or you read something that takes your mind and expands where your thoughts can go, that’s powerful.

Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, miserable and confused about what they should do. But there is a way to live a simple, joy-filled, peaceful life, and the key is learning how to be led by the Holy Spirit, not the traditions or expectations of man.

The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

I’ve just always been a reader.

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

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

The moment I said I’d finished a book, I knew what would happen. There would be a bidding war, and I would end up with someone who’d got the fattest wallet, who had bought it because I’d written Harry Potter. That would have been why.

And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don’t think anyone in my family would really feel I’d done them an injustice by saying that. We didn’t see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

You see the film, you might be entertained, and if it’s not a great film, it loses its power very quickly. I think even simply acceptable books stay with us a lot longer.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

There is a soak-the-rich attitude in the air, a feeling that if you have a lot of money you must have got it by some ghastly means. I can quite happily say there was never any family money. All the money we got was mine, just from writing books.

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

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.

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

I used to take my short stories to girls‘ homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?

I read a lot. I enjoy reading a lot.

Upon books the collective education of the race depends; they are the sole instruments of registering, perpetuating and transmitting thought.

People look to time in expectation that it will eventually make them happy, but you cannot find true happiness by looking toward the future.

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

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

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.

When I put out ‚Video Games‘ in May 2011, it was a 5:25-minute love song; I was surprised when a lot of people said they were listening to it. I was surprised when it went to the radio, without me even knowing how something like that even happens!

If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.

My family has never been there for me. They expect things because we’re blood.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.

In books lies the soul of the whole past time.

I think I have a certain respect for people, you know. And I guess a lot of times I expect that respect to go both ways.