Here are 20 great literature quotes about reading.
[Gathered by Regina Kenney]
“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”
― Francis Bacon
“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.
Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis
“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire
“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert
“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
― Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader
“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides
“We read to know we’re not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles William Eliot
“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
― Oscar Wilde
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
“′Classic′ – a book which people praise and don’t read.”
― Mark Twain
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
― Ray Bradbury
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!
“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid
