Reading
“A man is known by the books he reads.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.” ~ Maya Angelou
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” ~ James Baldwin
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” ~ Stephen King
“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” ~ Malcolm X
“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
“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“You should never read just for “enjoyment.” Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick “hard books.” Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, “I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.” Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of “literature”? That means fiction, too, stupid.” ~ John Waters
“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.” ~ Joyce Carol Oates
“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.” ~ Philip Pullman
“Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.” ~ Anatole France
“Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book! A message to us from the dead, – from human souls whom we never saw, who lived perhaps thousands of miles away; and yet these, on those little sheets of paper, speak to us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.” ~ Charles Kingsley
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. ~Richard Steele, Tatler
“TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they’ll have with twenty-six. Open your child’s imagination. Open a book.” ~ Unknown
“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 W. Eliot
“Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.” ~ Unknown
“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.” ~ Louis L’Amour
“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
