The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man.
My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms.
After more than sixty years of almost daily reading of the Bible, I never fail to find it always new and marvelously in tune with the changing needs of every day.
In general, I think, less is more, and that if a reader stops reading because a book is too icky then I’ve failed in my obligation to the readers.
I had a longing for ritual, something I could cling to, a routine to make me feel well and contented. I hoped that reading Bible commentaries and theological critiques would nudge me closer to some kind of absolute that I could hold up as a torch to light my way.
In the early ’90s, when I really started to find my voice, I was reading a lot of books, and I was moved by the writers, like Chinua Achebe, and I wanted to be able to write rhymes that were as potent as what I was reading.
Reading something from beginning to end. That is reading with love.
People learn in different ways: reading, listening, pictures, watching.
I don’t like reading scripts very much. I like it better for someone to just explain to me what it is about this story.
How good are the best musical imaginations? Can a trained musician, swiftly reading a score, tell just how that voicing of dissonant oboes and flutes over the massed strings will sound?
I wrote some bad poetry that I published in North African journals, but even as I withdrew into this reading, I also led the life of a kind of young hooligan.
By reading the characteristic features of any man’s castles in the air you can make a shrewd guess as to his underlying desires which are frustrated.
I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.
It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. I think the best way for children to treasure reading is for them to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.
I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved.
It is our duty and our joy to communicate our hearts to each other. Words assist us in this task.
He was reading from the beginning so that he could get to the end, where the reader was assured that the knight and the fair maiden lived together happily ever after.
And so he was reading the story as if it were a spell and the words of it, spoken aloud, could make magic happen.
We forget that the simple gesture of putting a book in someone’s hands can change a life. I want to remind you that it can. I want to thank you because it did. – 2010 Indies Choice Award.
I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.