Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.
—Edwin Paxton Hood (1820–85) English Nonconformist Divine, Author
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 is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
A wicked book cannot repent.
—Common Proverb
There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American Poet, Playwright, Feminist
Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur “Thou still unravished bride of quietness,” then I am instantly aware that I am in the presence of the literary.
—Terry Eagleton
The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.
—Anita Brookner (1928–2016) English Novelist, Art Historian
The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book.
—Thomas a Kempis (1379–1471) German Religious Priest, Writer
Books and proverbs receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.
—William Temple (1881–1944) British Clergyman, Theologian
A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don’t slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.
—Pablo Neruda (1904–73) Chilean Poet, Diplomat, Political leader
The chief knowledge that a man gets from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
—Harper Lee (1926–2016) American Novelist
Deep versed in books, but shallow in himself.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
What is reading, but silent conversation.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Few are sufficiently sensible of the importance of that economy in reading which selects, almost exclusively, the very first order of books. Why, except for some special reason, read an inferior book, at the very time you might be reading one of the highest order?
—John W. Foster
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
—Italo Calvino (1923–85) Italian Novelist, Essayist, Journalist
There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as others are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
A book worth reading is worth buying.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Only a generation of readers will span a generation of writers.
—Steven Spielberg (b.1946) American Film Director, Screenwriter, Film Producer, Businessperson
That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French Philosopher, Psychoanalyst, Poet
When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
A good book is always on tap; it may be decanted and drunk a hundred times, and it is still there for further imbibement.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
A book that is shut is but a block.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
A book is a gift you can open again and again.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality
Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings—as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
—Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American Philosopher, Educator
The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out, and after an era of darkness new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.
—Clarence Day (1874–1935) American Author, Humorist
My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human being. If we seek to know him, are we idly occupied?
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
A good book is the purest essence of a human soul.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
There are two kinds of books. Those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
As well almost kill a man, as kill a good book; for the life of the one is but a few short years, while that of the other may be for ages.—Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself; kills as it were, the image of God.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.
—Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) Anglican Church Historian, Clergyman
In books lies the soul of the whole past time.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Having books published is very destructive to writing. It is even worse than making love too much. Because when you make love too much at least you get a damned clarte that is like no other light. A very clear and hollow light.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
Books are embalmed minds.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Those who do not read are no better off than those who cannot read.
—Indian Proverb
Books tap the wisdom of our species—the greatest minds, the best teachers—from all over the world and from all our history. And they’re patient.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic