Famous Quotes & Sayings

Claire Messud

If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble.

Claire Messud

If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t ‘Is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘Is this character alive?'

Elizabeth Scott

Are you reading?" I say. It's not that I don't think Finn can read or anything, but it's just - well, not what I expected to see. I figured Finn spent his time doing whatever it is guys who aren't Josh do when they aren't in school. Burping, or something. "Try not to look so surprised," Finn says. "I read. I can count to ten. Sometimes I can even spell my own name.

Elizabeth Hardwick

Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.

Elizabeth I

I plucke up the goodlie greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together; that I, having tasted the sweetenes, l may the lesse perceave the bitternes of this miserable life.

B. C. Forbes

The young man who addresses himself in stern earnest to organizing his life-his habits, his associations, his reading, his study, his work-stands far more chance of rising to a position affording him opportunity to exercise his organizing abilities than the fellow who dawdles along without chart or compass, without plan or purpose, without self-improvement and self-discipline.

B. C. Forbes

The most famous self-made man in the world today is our own Edison. Talk with Mr. Edison and he will tell you he owes much if not most of his success to omnivorous reading. Forbes is one of his favorite publications. How closely he reads it can be gathered from a letter just received from him in which he asks the editor to forward a long analytical letter to the writer of a series of articles which contained two figures Mr. Edison questions, and he wants to know exactly on what authority or investigation they were based. Both letters were the product of Mr. Edison and were signed by him.

Arthur Helps

Man ceased to be an ape, vanquished the ape, on the day the first book was written.

Arthur Helps

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

Armie Hammer

I never grew up reading or fantasizing about fairy tales. I was always too busy, like, outside being a kid.

Arlo Guthrie

If readers understand that they do not understand what they are reading then they must possess an understanding which is superior to the meaning which caused that misunderstanding.

Aprilynne Pike

Guess I've been reading too much fantasy.

Antonio Banderas

I get caught up in my bubble of reading, writing, or music.

Ben Stein

If you want to fight the evil you see in finance and industry, get to work reading the corporate filings, see if there has been fraud, and where you find it, report it to the SEC or write about it or blog about it.

Barbara Corcoran

I hadn't learned to read by third grade, which wasn't unusual for some kids. I knew something was wrong because I couldn't see or understand the words the way the other kids did. I wasn't the least bit bothered - until I was sent back to the second-grade classroom for reading help after school.

Avi

For heaven's sake, don't write writing. Write reading!

Bruce Schneier

if anyone thinks they can get an accurate picture of anyplace on the planet by reading news reports, they're sadly mistaken.

Bruce Schneier

There are two kinds of cryptography in this world: cryptography that will stop your kid sister from reading your files, and cryptography that will stop major governments from reading your files.

Brit Marling

When you're reading Chekov, you're in this world that he's created. I never would have created that world. I don't know anything about that time period or that setting or those groups of people or what those experiences were, but oh my gosh, it's amazing to daydream on it and put yourself there.

Brian Lamb

We wanted to hear from viewers about why they watch or participate in call-ins on C-SPAN, ... Viewers of all ages and walks of life wrote to us, including actresses, stand-up comics, parents and students. What's clear after reading the entries is the impact that call-ins have had on the political conversation on the network.

Brian Michael Bendis

I've been reading Ed Brubaker comics since the first appearance of Ed Brubaker comics and every single time he announces a new title I mutter to myself: ugh! I wish I would've thought of that!

Brian Greene

I enjoy reading blogs, but am not interested in having my spurious thoughts out there.

Brandon Sanderson

Wayne: You wanna know why I really came to find you? Waxilliam: Why? Wayne: I thought of you happy in a comfy bed, resting and relaxing, spending the rest of your life sipping tea and reading papers while people bring you food and maids rub your toes and stuff. Waxilliam: And? Wayne: And I just couldn't leave you to a fate like that...I'm too good a friend to let a mate of mine die in such a terrible situation. Waxilliam: Comfortable? Wayne: No. Boring.

Brandon Sanderson

Start writing the things that you are reading or that you want to be published doing.

Brandon Sanderson

It is very important to be reading as well as writing. A doctor is not going to ignore new surgery practices.

Brandon Sanderson

Novels aren’t just happy escapes; they are slivers of people’s souls, nailed to the pages, dripping ink from veins of wood pulp. Reading the right one at the right time can make all the difference.

Aravind Adiga

In a sense, journalism can be both helpful and detrimental to a writer of fiction because the kind of writing you need to do as a journalist is so different. It has to be clear, unambiguous, concise, and as a writer often you are trying to do things that are more ambiguous. I find that writing fiction is often an antidote to reading and writing too much journalism.

Archibald MacLeish

The one man who should never attempt an explanation of a poem is its author. If the poem can be improved by it's author's explanations it never should have been published, and if the poem cannot be improved by its author's explanations the explanations are scarcely worth reading.

Ben Mezrich

Seeing someone reading something I wrote on an airplane - things like that are pretty awesome.

Ben Okri

Don't read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.

Ben Okri

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 encountered before, people you wouldn’t care to sit next to in a train, people that don’t exist, places you’ve never visited, enigmatic fates, all come to life in the mind, painted into existence by the reader’s creative powers. In this way the creativity of the writer calls up the creativity of the reader. Reading is never passive.

Barbara Kingsolver

I think that when people read fiction, they're really reading for wisdom. I am. That's what most of us really love. If we read a novel that rocks our world, it's because there's something in it that we didn't know already. Not just information but really wisdom - sort of what to do with our information. And wisdom comes from experience.

Barbara Kingsolver

If someone does learn about the world from reading a novel of mine, that makes me very happy. It's probably not what brings me into the novel in the first place - I usually am pulled in by some big question about the world and human nature that I'm not going to resolve in the course of the novel. But I'm very devoted to getting my facts straight.