When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

My 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.

If you can’t read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!

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

My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a quaker.

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

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.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.

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’ll die a crazy old man!

Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they’re eating sandwiches.

If literature isn’t everything, it’s not worth a single hour of someone’s trouble.

I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod. Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, ‚If wet, in the library.‘ Who could say that this is bad?

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.

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

Contrary to reports, this boy is not a billionaire or going to be richer than any Beatle… and not just in the sense of money, by the way; the Beatles are untouchable – those billionaire reports are a joke.

Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn’t come here. Well, it can’t hide forever – one day we will overhear it.

I am odd-looking. I sometimes think I look like a funny Muppet.

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

Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

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

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

I’m crazy, but I’m not stupid.

You cannot open a book without learning something.

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.

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

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

Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

I have two pairs of reading glasses. One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction. I’ve read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it’s the same.

Is it weird in here, or is it just me?

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

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.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

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

It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?

The tablet is not mainstream. Reading off the screen is not mainstream.

If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don’t want to go there.

The other day I… uh, no, that wasn’t me.

People say I look so happy – and I say, ‚That’s the Botox.‘

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

I know I’m more on television, and I’m more recognisable than maybe even the players because they run and train, but I just stand there, and my face does all these funny things that everyone can see all the time.

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‚we.‘

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

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

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

I’ve seen George Foreman shadow boxing, and the shadow won.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

All genuinely intellectual work is humorous.

I should be a postage stamp, because that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked. I’m beautiful. I’m fast. I’m so mean I make medicine sick. I can’t possibly be beat.

I read poetry to save time.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.