I haven’t read Horowitz. I didn’t used to read him when he was a Stalinist, and I don’t read him today.

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.

I’m not a very creative person, you know? I’m not really an art person. I’m not a great reader or writer or artist or musician.

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues?

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

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

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book.

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

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

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.

Become slower in your journey through life. Practice yoga and meditation if you suffer from ‚hurry sickness.‘ Become more introspective by visiting quiet places such as churches, museums, mountains and lakes. Give yourself permission to read at least one novel a month for pleasure.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

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

I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high.

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ and I don’t know if you remember ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ but it’s dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him because she is a mermaid.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.

Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

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

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.

To me, reading a fashion magazine is the last thing I need to do. I’ve got books I need to read.

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

No book includes the entire world. It’s limited. And so it doesn’t seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to do that. There’s so much other material to write about.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

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

It cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational – and I’m speaking the written science fiction, not ‚Star Trek.‘ Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they’re clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff.

You 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.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

It’s so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I’ve never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.

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’ve actually not read any books on time management.

I’m always reading the next book. Taking notes. Highlighting, researching, studying. It doesn’t stop.

I’m a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don’t agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

After 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.

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.

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 would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books.

A home without books is a body without soul.

The 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.

Of 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.

Books are alive, you see. They’re not dead, they’re alive.

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.

A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.

It’s not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, ‚Read,‘ but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, ‚Don’t read, don’t think, just write,‘ and the result could be a mountain of drivel.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.

‚The Lion‘ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‚Let’s try to make a story about it.‘