645 quotes found
“We human beings build houses because we're alive, but we write books because we're mortal. We live in groups because we're sociable, but we read because we know we're alone. Reading offers a kind o...”
“That’s why people use terms like flow or effortless to describe writing that they regard as really superb. They’re not saying effortless in terms of it didn’t seem like the writer spent any work. I...”
“What we need to understand is that books weren't written so that young people could write essays about them, but so that they could read them if they really wanted to.Knowledge, academic track reco...”
“Rather than allowing a book's intelligence to speak through our mouths, we replace it with our own intelligence as we talk about it. Rather than acting as emissary for the book, we become guardians...”
“Reassured, we left their bedroom without understanding-- or wanting to admit-- that what a child learns first isn't the act but the gestures that accompany the act. And although it may also help th...”
“We see that that ritual of reading every evening at the end of the bed when they were so little--set time, set gestures-- was like a prayer.”
“In unremarkable texts we soon trip on phrases that penetrate into us, as if a sword has thrust up to its hilt inside us.”
“Always remember, any book you haven’t read is still a new book.”
“I read and feel that same compulsion; the desire to possess what he has written, which can only be subdued by writing something myself.”
“What I’m suggesting then is that much of our response to novels may have to do with the kind of “system” or “conversation” we grew up in and within which we had to find a position and establish an ...”
“For at eight o’clock the world came to an end. It was reading time. The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours.”
“Reading, therefore, is a co-production between writer and reader. The simplicity of this tool is astounding. So little, yet out of it whole worlds, eras, characters, continents, people never encoun...”
“When was the last time someone read aloud to you? Probably when you were a child, and if you think back, you'll remember how safe you felt, tucked under the covers, or curled in someone's arms, as ...”
“Jocelyn recognized reading as a sacred pastime and usually wouldn't interrupt Clary in the middle of a book, even to yell at her.”
“Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce...As reading becomes more and mor...”
“The beauty of Goodreads is that you know you’re sowing in a field where everyone, by definition and self-selection, loves to read.”
“I have built a city from the books I've read. A good book sings a a timeless music that is heard in the choir lofts, and balconies, and theaters that thrived within that secret city inside me.”
“…the primary trait of young adult literature is that the author’s emphasis is on plot and character and not on his own brilliance. And because few people talk about whether a young adult work is co...”
“The question isn't whether I have time to read or not (time that nobody will ever give me, by the way), but whether I'll allow myself the pleasure of being a reader.”
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
