You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

But 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.

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I must have read a whole library.

If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly by the hand, before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Total relaxation is the secret to enjoying sitting meditation. I sit with my spine upright, but not rigid; and I relax all the muscles in my body.

You don’t always have to be doing something. You can just be, and that’s plenty.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

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

The best workers, like the happiest livers, look upon their work as a kind of game: the harder they play the more enjoyable it becomes.

I like to take it easy.

I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.

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

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books, and no matter what happens, books will survive.

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.

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

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

You don’t read in your own field. You read in that field when you’re young, so that you can learn.

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they’re just infested with lots of stuff.

Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.

I don’t race cars.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

I’m screamingly funny, you know, I really am in the books. And that helps because I’m funnier than a lot of people, I think, and that’s appreciated by young people.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.

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.

The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, and before I could read them for myself, I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone.

Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island what book would I bring… ‚How to Build a Boat.‘

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

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.

The problem with meditating is I generally go to sleep, and that’s because I’m doing it wrong.

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

I read a lot of obscure books and it is nice to open a book.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

For a highly motivated learner, it’s not like knowledge is secret and somehow the Internet made it not secret. It just made knowledge easy to find. If you’re a motivated enough learner, books are pretty good.

Every device there is in language is there to be used, if you will. Poets have got to enjoy themselves sometimes, and the twistings and convolutions of words, the inventions and contrivances, are all part of the joy that is part of the painful, voluntary work.

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

Nobody enjoys the ‚little show about nothing‘ humor more than me, but that is never the way I look at it.

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

I first found delight in the Sabbath many years ago when, as a busy surgeon, I knew that the Sabbath became a day for personal healing. By the end of each week, my hands were sore from repeatedly scrubbing them with soap, water, and a bristle brush. I also needed a breather from the burden of a demanding profession.

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.

Yeah, the Mac Life… it’s about sipping some tea, getting together with the knitting circle. You know I like origami, right? That’s how you get to be notorious.

Musicians are there in front of you, and the spectators sense their tension, which is not the case when you’re listening to a record. Your attention is more relaxed. The emotional aspect is more important in live music.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.

For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.

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.

A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

I think I don’t take myself too seriously. You know as far as, it’s a fun life. I take my music serious, but I like to have fun.

Living big and joyful and content is almost always the result of our finding satisfaction in life’s ordinary day-to-day pleasures. And God must be fond of them, too, for He made so many of them for us to enjoy.

Give yourself more opportunities for privacy, when you are not bombarded with duties and obligations. Privacy is not a rejection of those you love; it is your deserved respite for recharging your batteries.

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

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.