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

For people who are readers, reading is important to them.

I’m sure most parents read to their children to explain what certain things mean. So books are a good way to convey a message to anybody. Everybody reads.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Whatever came to mind, whatever came to hand, I would read.

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me – they’re cramming for their final exam.

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?

‚Classic.‘ A book which people praise and don’t read.

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

The truest form of any form of revolutionary Left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings, & Ginsberg’s period. Excuse me, but that’s where it was at.

The United States supports a strong, united Ukraine with productive and peaceful relationships with both the East and the West, with both Russia and Europe.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

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

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

In books lies the soul of the whole past time.

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

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

I was a chemistry major, but I’m always winding up as a teacher in English departments, so I’ve brought scientific thinking to literature. There’s been very little gratitude for this.

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.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well.

I rewrote the ending to ‚Farewell to Arms,‘ the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

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.

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.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.

If you want to find the source of much of the music of modern day Russia, you will find it in the incredible compositions of that crazed lunatic Berlioz.

It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered.

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist.

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

Shakespeare – I was very influenced – still am – by Shakespeare. I couldn’t believe that a white man in the 16th century could so know my heart.

The American President resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all – make us laugh, think, cry and cheer – preferably in that order.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

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.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

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.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

I’m tall, fat, rather bald, red-faced, double-chinned, black-haired, have a deep voice, and wear glasses for reading.

The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I read all the time, and I’m often struck by something I’m reading.

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

You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across – not to just depict life – or criticize it – but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.

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

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.

Burroughs is crap. Crap.

Every utopia – let’s just stick with the literary ones – faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don’t fit in?

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.

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.

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.

If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.