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Quotes about reading

116 quotes from 88 people

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People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.
Malcolm X1925–1965The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), p. 400
I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.
Malcolm X1925–1965The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), Chapter 11, paragraph 59
I’ll burn my books!
Christopher Marlowe1564–1593Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), spoken by FaustusIn context
- Knowledge
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 67In context
If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.
Herman Melville1819–1891The Encantadas (1854), Sketch Eighth
He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.
Michel de Montaigne1533–1592Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond
When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue⁠—you sell him a whole new life.
Christopher Morley1890–1957Parnassus on Wheels (1917)
We read to know that we are not alone.
WNWilliam Nicholsonborn 1948Shadowlands (1993)
When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page. It is not necessarily the actual face of the writer.
George Orwell1903–1950Charles Dickens (1939)
- Writing
Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.
William Penn1644–1718Advice to his children (1699)
I have found out that reading is a slavish sort of dreaming. If I must dream, why not my own dreams?
Fernando Pessoa1888–1935Apontamentos pessoais [“Autobiographical Notes”] (1910)
In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author; in perusing others, exclusively with our own.
Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849Marginalia (November 1844)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849The Raven (1845)In context
Literature is news that STAYS news.
Ezra Pound1885–1972ABC of Reading (1934), Ch. 2 (p. 29 in the 1961 paperback)
- Writing
Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand.
Ezra Pound1885–1972Guide to Kulchur (1938), p. 55