# Quotes about reading - Quotes: 8 - Authors: 6 - Broader topic: [Quotes about literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading ## Quotes > In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of John Knox, and even Sewel's and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers. He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memoranda, and Collins's account of the first settlement of New South Wales. Autobiography · p. 8 Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement in the Greek poet with the Iliad. After I had made some progress in this, my father put Pope's translation into my hands. It was the first English verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books in which for many years I most delighted: I think I must have read it from twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought it worth while to mention a taste apparently so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, observed that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant specimen of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys, as I should have expected both à priori and from my individual experience. Autobiography · p. 10 Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [poetry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry.md), [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > However trashy pulp fiction might be, it had to be read. Youngsters avid for the corny, lightning-jagged, cliché-ridden, clumsy stories had to read words and sentences to satisfy their craving. It trained everyone who read it in literacy, and a small percentage of them may that have passed on to better things. > > Now consider what has happened since.… > > In general, the trend over the last half century or so has been away from the word to the picture. The comic magazines increased the level of looking, decreased the level of reading. The television set is carried this to an extreme. [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [I, Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov.md) · p. 46 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/however-trashy-pulp.md) Topics: [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. > > Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself. [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [I, Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov.md) · p. 29 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/i-received-the.md) Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain. Last Evenings On Earth Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > There are people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men 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](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken.md) · [Minority Report](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/there-are-people.md) Topics: [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste. [Voltaire](https://www.leafyquotes.com/voltaire.md) · [Candide](https://www.leafyquotes.com/voltaire/candide.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/voltaire/candide/fools-have-a-habit.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md) > Pilgrim's Progress, about a man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. [Mark Twain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain.md) · [Adventures of Huckleberry Finn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/pilgrims-progress-about.md) Topics: [reading](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading.md)