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Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And read closely.
David McCulloughRead, read, read, read, read. Read everything. You canโt work unless you know the world, and outside of living in the world the best way to learn about the world is to read about it.
John GoodmanRead, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.
William FaulknerSit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.
Joseph CampbellExperts generally agree that taking all opportunities to read books and other material aloud to children is the best preparation for their learning to read. The pleasures of being read to are far more likely to strengthen a child's desire to learn to read than are repetitions of sounds, alphabet drills, and deciphering uninteresting words.
Lilian KatzI've only read three books by Stephen King. When I was 10 I read 'The Long Walk,' one of his pseudonymous Bachman books. In my early 20s, while trapped on a family vacation, I read 'The Dark Half,' which taught me a word I have never forgotten: psychopomp. Now I have read '11/22/63.'
Lev GrossmanI think the right to read, is one of our inherent rights, and I think that people in America today are intelligent enough to decide for themselves what they want to read. Without being told, by self-appointed people, you must not read this, or you cannot read this.
Bennett CerfI read," I say. "I study and read. I bet I've read everything you read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM-drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it." My instincts concerning syntax and mechanics are better than your own, I can tell, with all due respect. But it transcends the mechanics. I'm not a machine. I feel and believe. I have opinions. Some of them are interesting. I could, if you'd let me, talk and talk.
David Foster WallaceI was raised pretty much a fundamentalist, but the one thing that fundamentalism gave to me was the love for that book and a commitment to read and study it. The difficulty is that I've read it all, I didn't skip around, I read it all, and when you read it all, you can't take it literally because you don't want to blame God for a lot of stuff that occurs in that book. There are some pretty violent scenes.
John Shelby SpongJustice. To be ever ready to admit that another person is something quite different from what we read when he is there (or when we think about him). Or rather, to read in him that he is certainly something different, perhaps something completely different from what we read in him. Every being cries out silently to be read differently.
Simone WeilAll that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention - of barbarian invention - is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition - then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity.
Robert Green IngersollA letter doesn't communicate by words alone. A letter, just like a book, can be read by smelling it, touching it and fondling it. Thereby, intelligent folk will say, 'Go on then, read what the letter tells you!' whereas the dull-witted will say, 'Go on then, read what he's written!
Orhan PamukGabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my all-time favorite writers. I feel spiritual when reading his words, even though they're translated. I wish desperately that I could read it in its original language. I already feel like I'm going to church when I read him; imagine if I could read it in the original.
Conor OberstRead for fun, read for information, read in order to understand yourself and other people with quite different ideas. Learn about the world beyond your door. Learn to be compassionate and grow in wisdom. Books can help us in all these ways.
Katherine PatersonMaster those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and re-read them...digest them...a student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by 20 books he has merely skimmed.
Charles SpurgeonReading was my first solitary vice (and led to all others). I read while I ate, I read in the loo, I read in the bath. When I was supposed to be sleeping, I was reading.
Germaine GreerThereโs different ways to be impacted by truth. One is to read the scriptures. Another is to read other works by other people who have read the scriptures, non fiction for example. Another is to do studies. Another is to go to a place of worship. Another thing is to sit and listen to someone whoโs speaking. Thereโs all kinds of ways. Another way is to write. About the truth. Discover the struggle through your character.
Ted DekkerI already read everything. I read poems and plays and novels and newspapers and comic books and magazines. I read tins in supermarkets and leaflets that come through the door, unsolicited mail. None of it lasts long and it doesn't give me answers. Reading too fast is not soothing.
Janice GallowayRead proudly--put the duty of being read invariably on the author. If he is not read, whose fault is it? I am quite ready to be charmed, but I shall not make-believe I am charmed.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWhen I'd read the script [The Man], [ Eugene Levy] that's who I'd seen in my mind. When I ran into him, I said to him, 'I read the script. You'd be great.' He had no idea what I was talking about. Then, we saw each other again in London. He'd read it and was enthused about it.
Samuel L. JacksonRead the Bible, read the Bible! Let no religious book take its place. Through all my perplexities and distresses, I seldom read any other book, and I as rarely felt the want of any other.
William WilberforceI had not read George Eliot, so read a few. I felt ashamed I hadn't read "Middlemarch" before.
Stephen Dobyns[If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases.
Thomas JeffersonI don't read anything anymore. I don't have the eyesight. I read my own copy, that's all. I think I've read everything that's worth reading.
John GouldRead the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.
Edward AlbeeI want to read so I can read the Koran read the signs in the street know the number of the bus I'm supposed to take when I one day leave this house.
Eve EnslerI usually go to bed early to read. I read and I always say that I'm not a "bohemian artist;" I need to read for one or two hours in the evening, and the quiet, so I don't hang out a lot.
Michal RovnerYes. I did more research than I ever wanted to and saw some things I wish I didn't. I went on ride-alongs, spent time with Homicide, Cold Case, and SVU detectives, hung out in subways learning how to spot pervs and pick-pockets, viewed an autopsy, went to a police firing range, and witnessed court cases and I read, read, read.
Mariska HargitayDoes there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.
Arnold BennettI like what I read, I find it intellectually engaging and I don't really have that much time, so I gotta make every bit count. I read magazines and stuff like that, but if I'm going to read a book, I want to come out smarter. It's not to escape, it's to learn.
Rahm EmanuelIn one sense, reading is a great waste of time. In another sense, it is a great extension of time, a way for one person to live a thousand and one lives in a single lifespan, to watch the great impersonal universe at work again and again That is why I read: I want everything to be okay. Thatโs why I read when I was a lonely kid and thatโs why I read now that Iโm a scared adult.
Mary RuefleCorliss wondered what happens to a book that sits unread on a library shelf for thirty years. Can a book rightfully be called a book if it never gets read? If a tree falls in a forest and gets pulped to make paper for a book that never gets read, but there's nobody there to read it, does it make a sound?
Sherman AlexieI do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.
Daniel TammetThe thought of these vast stacks of books would drive him mad: the more he read, the less he seemed to know โ the greater the number of the books he read, the greater the immense uncountable number of those which he could never read would seem to beโฆ. The thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever.
Thomas WolfeI have learned that my assignment is to write books for people who do not like to read books. I really try to connect with people who are not given to spending a lot of time with an open book. Pay day to me is when somebody comes up to me and says, "I never read books but I read yours." I have a heart for that person.
Max LucadoWho reads short stories? one is asked, and I like to think that they are read by men and women in the dentist's office, waiting to be called to the chair; they are read on transcontinental plane trips instead of watching banal and vulgar films spin out the time between our coasts; they are read by discerning and well-informed men and women who seem to feel that narrative fiction can contribute to our understanding of one another and the sometimes bewildering world around us.
John CheeverI wish the government would read the Constitution. I think that would probably help quite a bit. And maybe they did read it and maybe they got confused when they read the preamble which says one of the duties is to promote the general welfare.
Benjamin CarsonI never read detective novels. I started out in graduate school writing a more serious book. Right around that time I read 'The Day of the Jackal' and 'The Exorcist'. I hadn't read a lot of commercial fiction, and I liked them.
James PattersonRead poems to yourself in the middle of the night. Turn on a single lamp and read them while you're alone in an otherwise dark room or while someone else sleeps next to you. Read them when you're wide awake in the early morning, fully alert. Say them over to yourself in a place where silence reigns and the din of the culture โ the constant buzzing noise that surrounds us โ has momentarily stopped. These poems have come from a great distance to find you.
Edward HirschI read five books on the Constitution. My favorite was 'Plain, Honest Men' by Richard Beeman. I went on a science jag in the same way. I kept getting in arguments about evolution and being bested. So I read Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of the Species,' a fantastic book that is not that difficult.
Denis O'HarePublishers have realized that, unlike the previous time period, American teenagers are both smarter and require more topical material than they had been giving them before that. For one thing, they'll read thicker books. Besides, has anybody looked at the news or read the newspapers recently?
Tamora PierceI hope to see the two great religions, Islam and Christianity, hand-in-hand, embracing each other. Then the Torah and the Bible and the Qurโan will become books supporting one another being read everywhere, and respected by every nation โฆ [I am] looking forward to seeing Muslims read the Torah and the Bible.
Muhammad AbduhThere is a logic [to my reading], but I can't define it. I like reading impulsively. I collect books, I have a lot of them, but most of them I have not read yet. I'll read them when they call me from the shelf.
Aleksandar HemonI don't sit down with a goal of writing. I read books or magazines. I watch TV. I go to the doctor. I get on airplanes. I live a normal life and sometimes I'll notice something or read things or experience things.
Brian ReganJohn Cassavetes wrote A Woman Under the Influence as a play. He said, "Hey, I wrote you a play." And I said, "Great, let's read it." I read it and I said, "John, I couldn't do this every night and twice on Wednesday and Saturday".
Gena Rowlands