We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity. The appeal of literature is that it is so thoroughly a human thing – by, for and about human beings. If you lose that focus, you obviate the source of the power and permanence of literature.
There must be a secret hidden in this book or else you wouldn’t bother to read it.
And when I was young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get inside a book and never come out again? I loved reading so much I wanted to be a part of it, and there were some books I could have stayed in for ever.
I can remember picking up weighty tomes on the history of science and the history of philosophy and reading those when I was small.
I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.
When I was young, and addicted to reading, I had heard about dancing on the points of metaphysical needles; but, by mixing in the world, I found the points of political needles finer and sharper than the metaphysical ones.
A taste for literature and a turn for business, united in the same person, never fails to make a great man.
There is such seduction in a library of good books that I cannot resist the temptation to luxuriate in reading.
Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.
A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality.
As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.
A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.
The dictionary also invites a playful reading. It challenges anyone to sit down with it in an idle moment. There are worse ways to kill time.
If your friend wishes to read your ‘Plutarch’s Lives,’ ‘Shakespeare,’ or ‘The Federalist Papers,’ tell him gently but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat – but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart.
One reader is better than another in proportion as he is able of a greater range of activity in reading and exerts more effort.
All I want is a modest place in Mr X’s Good Reading, Miss Y’s Good Writing, and that new edition of One Thousand Best Bits of Recent Prose.
That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.
One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books, though preparation is necessary to profitable reading; and the less reading is better than more; – book-struck men are of all readers least wise, however knowing or learned.
Books are the most mannerly of companions, accessible at all times, in all moods, frankly declaring the author’s mind, without offense.
Of books in our time the variety is so voluminous, and they follow so fast from the press, that one must be a swift reader to acquaint himself even with their titles, and wise to discern what are worth reading.