Quotes about reading

I am not well read, but when I do read, I read well. [p. 124]

Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality: there are no dull subjects, only dull minds. All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be argued, but its release has become a functional necessity. All men must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts. It is part of the process of life among thinking beings.

Friends, we represent a minority, but Literature is on our side. With so many fine books to be read, so much to be studied and known, there is no need to bore ourselves with this rubbish.

My wealth is my shelf of books!

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

I am eternally grateful [...] for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

And I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.

The book is the only medium left that hasn’t been corrupted by the profane.

The invention of printing and the Reformation are and remain the two outstanding services of central Europe to the cause of humanity.

A man who can't read only knows what other folks tell him.

It is scarcely exaggeration to say that if one is not a little mad about Balzac at twenty, one will never live; and if at forty one can still take Rastignac and Lucien de Rubempre at Balzac's own estimate, one has lived in vain.

A book is as private and consensual as sex.