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50 most inspiring literature quotes of all time

Get inspired by the world’s most recognized book quotes – and make sure to read or re-read the books they come from.

Internet users share hundreds of thousands of quotes every day. Not too many people know that many of these great thoughts come from books. Even fewer know which books.

A single iconic sentence from a classic novel is not only a shot of positive energy. It’s proof that reading the remaining thousands of sentences will give the same level of pleasure and inspiration.

Want great quotes direct you to great reads? We list our 50 favorites below. For more inspiration, you can explore two quote collections.

First of all, you should check out Goodreads Quotes catalog – a section of the popular book recommendation site where users add their favorite quotes found in books.

By default, the book quotes on Goodreads are sorted by popularity (and this means the number of likes), so right away you’ll get inspired by the most powerful thoughts.

If you are looking for well-researched and attributed quotes, make sure to visit Wikiquote . Literary quotes are grouped by title, so it’s the easiest way to research the most interesting thoughts from specific books. What’s also very helpful, each detail page includes info about which chapter the particular quote comes from.

If there is a quote you believe should be added to the list, please share it in the comments below.

And now, take your time and get inspired!

50 most inspirational quotes from books

There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for. – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. – H.Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

Well-behaved women seldom make history. – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. – André Gide, Autumn Leaves

You can hang this wonderful quote from André Gide on the wall. The artwork designed by Quotes and Prose is available for instant download, 8 × 10 inch jpeg or pdf file.

Who, being loved, is poor? – Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving. – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Get busy living, or get busy dying. – Stephen King, Different Seasons

The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. – Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

Travel far enough, you meet yourself. – David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

A quote from David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas on a calligraphy print by Brenna Morris. The artwork is available in three sizes, from 4 × 6 to 8 × 10 inches.

None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are. – Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

Most people are nice when you finally see them. – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Don’t panic. – Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time. – Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven

When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive. – Paulo Coelho, The Zahir

It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. – Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The design by Sweetest Pie. You can get it from Etsy as an instant download, and print yourself in one of two sizes.

The only limits for tomorrow are the doubts we have today. –Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives. – Lemony Snicket, The Ersatz Elevator

I don’t want to die without any scars. – Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up. – Veronica Roth, Divergent

When you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worth while. – Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

A quote beautifully visualized by Chasing Elephants. You can get a digital file of this green color version, but also ask the shop owner for a different set of colors.

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. – Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. – Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. – Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

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If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels. – Tennessee Williams, Conversations with Tennessee Williams

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane. – Philip K. Dick, Valis

If you’re making mistakes it means you’re out there doing something. – Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. – Paulo Coelho, Brida

If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself. – Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

To define is to limit. – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. – Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all. – John Green, Paper Towns

Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer. – Dan Brown, Digital Fortress

So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible. – Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. – Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. – Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. – John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. – Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men

We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy. – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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Nothing that’s worthwhile is ever easy. – Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. – Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. – Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married

It is never too late to be wise. – Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. – Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for. – Joseph Heller, Catch-22

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

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The 22 best book quotes — and the books they come from

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• Some of the best quotes about life and love come from literature.
• We've gathered some of the best book quotes as well as the books they're from.
• Want more books? Check out our list of the best classic books .

Great literature has gifted us some of the most meaningful and timeless quotes about life, love, and everything in between. Writers can put words to the feelings and experiences we can't quite capture ourselves and leave us with quotes that resonate long after we've turned the page. Readers have found moving quotes in everything from gothic classics to contemporary young adult reads . 

Sometimes, we're inspired by a quote that we didn't even know came from a book. I've heard "Not all those who wander are lost" countless times but never knew it was from a beloved fantasy series. To create this list, I looked at some of the most memorable and moving quotes from literature throughout time. For readers looking for a new inspirational read or wondering where some of the greatest lines originated from, here are some of the best literary quotes and the books they came from.

The 22 best book quotes of all time:

"love is or it ain't. thin love ain't love at all.".

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.29

" Beloved " is a Pultizer Prize-winning historical fiction about Sethe, an escaped slave still running from her past 18 years later. Haunted both metaphorically by her memories and literally by the ghost of her baby, Sethe's past and present collide when a mysterious teenage girl arrives with the same name engraved upon her child's tombstone.

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."

"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $5.47

This adored classic is about four sisters — Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy — who are struggling to survive in New England during the Civil War. First published in 1869, this novel has delighted readers for generations as they follow the sisters on each of their unique journeys to womanhood. 

"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

"Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.99

First published in 1969, " Slaughterhouse-Five " is an anti-war novel about Billy Pilgrim, who becomes a chaplain's assistant in the US. Army during World War II. While the story begins with Billy's childhood and continues years after the war, Billy occasionally travels through time to reflect upon his life, humanity, and the devastating effects of war.

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."

"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.89

" The Alchemist " is a powerful and inspirational story full of wisdom about a boy named Santiago who travels to Egypt from Spain in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. On his adventure, Santiago encounters numerous obstacles, meets interesting new people, and discovers so much more than the treasure he once sought.

"There is always something left to love."

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez, available at Amazon and Bookshop , $14.49

This beautiful multi-generational story of the Buendía family begins with José Arcadio Buendía, the founding patriarch of the town of Macondo. Following seven generations of the family through feuds, friendships, and technological advancements, this novel uses magical realism to explore extraordinary moments through time.

"What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?"

"The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.98

" The Hate U Give " is a moving and timely young adult read about Starr Carter, a 16-year-old who witnesses her best friend, Khalil, get shot and killed by the police. When his death makes national headlines, everyone wants to hear what really happened, but Starr is fully aware of what telling the truth could mean as well as the consequences of staying silent.

"They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it."

"On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous " by Ocean Vuong, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.67

This stunning and poetic novel is a letter from a son to his mother, who cannot read. Little Dog is in his 20s, exploring and speaking frankly about sexuality, masculinity, grief, and race as he unravels his family's history rooted in Vietnam, leading to an unforgettable conclusion in this powerful novel about humanity and language. 

"Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for."

"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.22

Loved as a funny and realistic view on war, " Catch-22 " is about Yossarian, a bombardier during World War II who is mad that thousands of enemies are trying to kill him while his army continues to increase the number of dangerous missions he's required to fly. Yossarian finds himself in a Catch-22, a bureaucratic rule that says men who continue to fly dangerous missions should be considered insane, yet if they make a request to be removed, they are proven sane and ineligible for relief.

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am."

"The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15

" The Bell Jar " is a semi-autobiographical novel and a haunting classic from Sylvia Plath. The book follows Esther Greenwood, a young woman in Boston who is consumed by depression and anxiety as her mental state worsens over time.

"Time moves slowly, but passes quickly."

"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.99

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, " The Color Purple " is a magnificent and important novel about the abuse silently suffered by Black women in the 20th century. Celie and Nettie are sisters who were separated as children but continue to communicate and share messages of hope through letters that sustain them through seemingly insurmountable pain in this story of strength and redemption.

"Now that I knew fear, I also knew it was not permanent. As powerful as it was, its grip on me would loosen. It would pass."

"The Round House" by Louise Erdrich, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.25

This 2012 National Book Award winner follows a young boy on the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota whose community and family is changed forever in the wake of a terrible crime. Richly layered, this profound mystery is about so much more than finding a criminal and seeking justice.

"When I discover who I am, I'll be free."

"Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $13.99

" Invisible Man " is a 1952 classic that shaped American literature as an unnamed man from the South who gets a scholarship to an all-Black school in Harlem but must participate in a horrifying and humiliating "battle royal" in order to claim his spot. Powerful and raw, this novel explores identity and belonging as the narrator continues to search for his individuality in a society that doesn't want him to be himself. 

"Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful."

"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $5.52

First published in 1818, " Frankenstein " is a horror classic about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein who brings a monster to life and flees his laboratory in disgust, to return the next day and find that the creature is missing. In this novel that explores the dark power of alienation, Frankenstein's monster tells the devastating story to his creator of his first challenging days in the world.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.99

In this classic French children's book , a young prince meets a pilot whose plane has crashed in the desert, who begins to tell him his story of traveling across various planets and all he had seen and learned along the way. One of the most translated books in the world, " The Little Prince " is for readers of all ages who wish to reminisce upon the nostalgic innocence of childhood.

"Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"

"Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.99

" Don Quixote " is a historical novel from the 1600s and one of the top-selling books of all time . Quixano is a young nobleman who decides to become a knight-errant after reading countless romances and falling in love with the idea of chivalry. Under the name "Don Quixote de la Mancha," Quixano brings the witty Sancho Panza along as his squire on his quest for knighthood.

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.36

" Wuthering Heights " is a classic, gothic novel from 1847 about two families — the Lintons and the Earnshaws — and their relationships with the Earnshaws' adopted son, Heathcliff. Full of complex characters, this classic follows Heathcliff's young friendship with his benefactor's daughter, Cathy, as it grows and morphs into a passionate and twisted romance.

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.35

" I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings " is Maya Angelou's first book in her multi-volume autobiography series. This installment offers a glimpse at Maya Angelou's early years as she struggles against racism when she and her brother are sent to live with their grandmother in a small Southern town. When she returns to live with her mother, a horrible attack changes Maya Angelou's life forever in this memoir about identity, race, and hope in the face of impossible circumstances. 

"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum."

"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.99

Offred can remember enjoying life with her husband and daughter not long ago. Now, trapped in a dystopian present where women are only valued if they have viable ovaries, Offred is the Commander's handmaid, forced to lie down for him once a month and pray she gets pregnant in this devastatingly memorable read .

"As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."

"The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.10

Hazel's terminal cancer diagnosis has been extended by a few years when she meets a gorgeous boy named Augustus in her support group. Immediately drawn to one another, they agree to read each other's favorite books, launching a whirlwind teenage romance that's full of love and heartbreak.

"That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet."

"The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.98

" The Namesake " is Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel and explores the immigrant experience through the Ganguli family, whose story begins as Ashoke and Ashima uproot their traditional life in Calcutta and move to America shortly after their arranged marriage so Ashoke can attend school at MIT. When Ashima names their child Gogol, the meaning of his name continues to follow him through his life as he navigates the expectations of a first-generation immigrant.  

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

"Perks of Being A Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.19

In this unique coming-of-age novel set in the 1990s, Charlie is a freshman in high school who is torn between passivity and a budding passion for life while also being stuck between childhood and adulthood. This book is a compilation of his letters to an unknown recipient, discussing the challenges he faces with his family, in school, and in his personal life.

"Not all those who wander are lost."

"The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkein, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.27

" The Fellowship of the Ring " is the first novel in the classic fantasy "Lord of the Rings" series. In this book , the hobbit Bilbo Baggins entrusts young Frodo Baggins with an incredible and dangerous task: To take the powerful Ring to the Cracks of Doom and destroy it once and for all. Frodo sets off on an epic adventure across Middle-Earth in this beloved and revered novel.

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88 Best Quotes About Books & Reading

Books and reading are more than just hobbies — they’re gateways to other worlds, a form of travel while staying in place, and a catalyst for personal and social transformation.

They inspire our imaginations, broaden our horizons, and offer us perspectives we might never encounter otherwise. (And as Arthur taught us , having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card .)

Books are tools for change . They’ve sparked revolutions, preserved cultures, and even helped topple oppressive regimes.

But beyond their societal impact, books also provide personal growth and comfort. From classic literature to modern non-fiction, every page holds the potential for new knowledge and insight. 

Prominent figures and authors have spoken on the impact reading has had on their lives, shaping them into the changemakers they are today.

In this article, we’ve gathered some of the most empowering quotes about books and reading. 

These quotes encapsulate the joy, the education, and the transformative power that comes with being lost in a good book. 

Whether you’re an avid reader seeking affirmation or someone looking to cultivate a reading habit, these quotes are sure to resonate with you and perhaps inspire you to open that book you’ve been meaning to read. 

Dive in and be reminded of the incredible value of a well-written word:

You might also like: Quotes About Banned Books | Good Good Good Book Recommendations | Book Holidays & Months Calendar

The Best Quotes About Books & Reading

Famous quotes.

“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” — Carl Sagan

“Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.” — Malala Yousafzai

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.” — Charles Baudelaire

“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” — Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” — Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.” — Maya Angelou

“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.” — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” — Walt Disney

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotes About Books

“Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.” — John Green

“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” — Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.” — Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.” — William Styron

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” — Charles W. Eliot

“Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.” — David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“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.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world.” — Jeanette Winterson

“I love the way that each book — any book — is its own journey. You open it, and off you go…” — Sharon Creech

“And most of all, books. They were, in and of themselves, reasons to stay alive. Every book written is the product of a human mind in a particular state. Add all the books together and you get the end sum of humanity. Every time I read a great book I felt I was reading a kind of map, a treasure map, and the treasure I was being directed to was in actual fact myself.” — Matt Haig , Reasons to Stay Alive

“I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.” — Emma Thompson

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” — Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

“Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them.” — Arnold Lobel

Reading Quotes

“Read books. Care about things. Get excited. Try not to be too down on yourself. Enjoy the ever-present game of knowing.” — Hank Green

“I think reading is part of the birthright of the human being.” — LeVar Burton

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” — Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.” — Kate DiCamillo

“You should never read just for ‘enjoyment.’ Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick ‘hard books.’ Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of ‘literature’? That means fiction, too, stupid.” — John Waters, Role Models

“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel… is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.” — Ursula K. LeGuin

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” — John Green , The Fault in Our Stars

“Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.” — Jean Rhys

“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.” — Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three, 1923-1928

“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.” — Alberto Manguel, A Reading Diary

“Read the books they don’t want you to. That’s where the good stuff is.” — LeVar Burton

Inspiring Quotes About Reading

“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.” — Louis L’Amour

“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.” — Orhan Pamuk, The New Life

“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” — Malorie Blackman

“Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people’s ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.” — Roberto Bolaño, 2666

“Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.” — Harold Bloom

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real.” — Nora Ephron

“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.” — Angela Carter

“Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head.” — Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” — W. Somerset Maugham, Books and You

“If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.” — François Mauriac

Funny Quotes

“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.” — Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard

“Books were safer than other people anyway.” — Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.” — Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.” — Logan Pearsall Smith

“The problem with books is that they end.” — Caroline Kepnes, You

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” — Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” — Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.” — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet .

“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.” — Mary Wortley Montagu

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” — C.S. Lewis

“Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book.” — Stéphane Mallarmé

Short Quotes About Books and Reading

“Books may well be the only true magic.” — Alice Hoffman

“Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.” — Khaled Hosseini

“The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.” — Mary McLeod Bethune

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.” — Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader

“A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.” — Lisa Kleypas, A Wallflower Christmas

“Reading brings us unknown friends” — Honoré de Balzac

“In the end, we’ll all become stories.” — Margaret Atwood, Moral Disorder and Other Stories

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” — Emilie Buchwald

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” — Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“A good book is an event in my life.” — Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” — Sir Francis Bacon

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges

“The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.” — George Orwell, 1984

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” — Margaret Fuller

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” — Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

→ Read more short quotes

About Reading Making You a Better Writer

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” — Annie Proulx

“Read, 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 Faulkner

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” — Robert Frost

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” — Benjamin Franklin

More Quotes & Captions

“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.” — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

“Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds.” — Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul… It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.” — Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” — Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” — James Baldwin

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” — George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.” — J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest people of the past centuries.” — Descartes

“Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand.” — Ezra Pound

“Reading is my favourite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read.” — Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

‍ You might also like: Calendar of Book Holidays | Calendar of Library Celebrations | Quotes About Banned Books

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26 Quotes for the Ultimate Book Lover

If you're always reading a novel (or three), these are for you.

Alberto Manguel

Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.

Annie Dillard

She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.

Betty Smith

The world was hers for the reading.

Jhumpa Lahiri

That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.

Malala Yousafzai

Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.

Mark Haddon

Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.

Paul Sweeney

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.

Beverly Cleary​

If you don’t see the book you want on the shelf, write it.

The story is truly finished — and meaning is made — not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters.

Colson Whitehead

What isn't said is as important as what is said.

Donna Tartt​

Character, to me, is the life's blood of fiction.

Dr. Seuss​​

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

Emily Ruskovich​​

Poetic language is a way of giving the sense of an answer, just a sense of one, that the story itself is unable to provide.

George R.R. Martin​

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.

Margaret Atwood​​

In the end, we’ll all become stories.

Anna Quindlen

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

Neil Gaiman​

A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.

J.K. Rowling

I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.

Stephen King

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

Mason Cooley

Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.

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• Weekly Drop

35+ Quotes About Books That Truly Speak to Bibliophiles

November 16, 2020

Novels, memoirs, short stories, essay compilations, and more continue to shape who we are and how we view the world, no matter what format—physical book, ebook, or audiobook—we use to absorb and enjoy them. Books are pathways into different worlds and different lives, and one can never be truly bored with a good book. Here are some of the best quotes about books, whether you love to read or listen.

Quotes About Books and Reading

Between work, family, chores, and more, it’s all too easy to let life get in the way of the pleasure of spending time with books. Whether you’ve let your cherished hobby lag or you’re a devoted reader and listener, these quotes will remind you of what you love about settling down with the perfect story.

1. “That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

2. "Books are a uniquely portable magic." – Stephen King, On Writing

3. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.” – George R. R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

4. “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

5. “I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” – Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

6. “Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden  

7. "The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us." – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

8. “He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.” – John Green, An Abundance of Katherines 

9. “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World 

10.  “How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden   

11. “Come to a book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it, and draw your own map.” – Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

Quotes About Books and Knowledge

Whether they revolve around family dynamics or romantic relationships, or focus on career goals or personal challenges, books really do have the answers to all of our questions. We learn so much from works of literature, and the knowledge we can gain from authors of the past and present is indispensable. Read on for some quotes to inspire your next mind-expanding listen. 

12. “One must always be careful of books... and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.” – Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

13. “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

14. “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

15. “The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.” – George Orwell, 1984

16. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

17. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” – Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

18. “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala

19. “A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” – G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

20. “If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But thereis always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Quotes About the Pure Love of Books 

The ability to make the reader or listener fall in love with a book and its characters takes more than skill—writers must have a true passion for words and stories. These quotes demonstrate just how much love writers have for their craft.

21. “A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

22. “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

23. “It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays

24. “A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.” – David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

25. “When a long book succeeds, the writer and reader are not just having an affair; they are married.” – Stephen King, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

26. “A classic is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe, like a style in architecture or furniture. It's acquired a picturesque dignity to take the place of its fashion.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

27. “And books! ...she would buy them all over and over again; she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree.” – Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

28. “Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Funny Quotes About Books

We often turn to books for deep insights, or moving and dramatic tales. But sometimes, all you need from a book is a good laugh. Literature can be serious, but it can also be light and silly and absurd—which these quotes demonstrate perfectly.

29. “There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.” – Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

30. “Books were safer than other people anyway.” – Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

31. “Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.” – Anne Rice, The Witching Hour

32. “To a bibliophile, there is but one thing better than a box of new books, and that is a box of old ones.” – Will Thomas, Some Danger Involved

33. “Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

34. “I have tried to write by the old rule that how good a book is should be judged by the man who writes it by the excellence of the material that he eliminates.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

35. “Like most uneducated Englishwomen, I like reading—I like reading books in the bulk.” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

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Goodreads: Book Reviews 12+

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• 4.8 • 503.8K Ratings

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503.8K Ratings

Awesome book

Lin Stepp has really outdone herself on this book! I believe it is the best book she has ever written and I have read all her books! Not that I am a expert, but I am a high volume reader. I do relate to this story because I am part Cherokee, my great grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee. I think the research she did for this book was spot on. It touched my heart of all the history she had to research to make this book what it is. It is a fast read, or it was for me. It kept my interest and is a page turner. I love the characters she had in this book and it makes me want to go to Cherokee, NC to meet these people. She made them all seem so real to me. I could really see these people as the Cherokee families that live there. The thing about the grandma having site, it is so true that Cherokee have that. I also have a small part of that, mine is a little different. I have had site, but mostly I have feelings and know things about people, I feel them and know what kind of person they might be. You will not be disappointed in this book, it is worth every penny! I believe this book would be a good read at the beach, or a vacation trip anywhere, or just sitting on your porch enjoying the outside, or even by a fire when the snow is flying. Lin’s books are fun reads and I have said that about her books for years, and this one is no different. It is also is informative of some of the Cherokee people. Love this book!

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This app is one of my main apps! I personally read consistently everyday and I LOVE to log my books online. I personally hated logging my books in elementary school on paper. But this—has so many exceptions. For the people looking to see what the heck this app even does: you can add friends to see books they’re reading and if you want can compete. You can ofc log books! You cannot read books, this is not an online library! But it seriously has EVERY 👏🏻 BOOK 👏🏻 EVER 👏🏻 TO 👏🏻 BE 👏🏻 WRITTEN. Not for you to read, but to update your book status! If you put in your page number, it will tell you the percentage you’re in your book. There are three different shelves you can put a book under: Want to read, Read, and Currently Reading. There’s annual challenges like the 2023 reading challenge where you can set a goal of how many books you want to read in the year and it will log them! I love this and I beg you to get it. There’s no fees at all! You also can see recommended books for you based on your previous read books so they figure your taste. It may be incorrect at first, but I now get great recommendations that I would totally read. All my bookworms, get this right now.

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Home › Books & Reading Quotes

160 Quotes About Books & Reading

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Many of us have special memories of the books that have inspired us, and have learned the profound effect that reading the right book can have at the right moment. If you’re short on time, reading some quotes about books is the next best thing.

Books have the power to transport us to new worlds and different times , but they can also take us back to the important moments in our own lives.

From building your vocabulary to reducing stress, preventing age-related cognitive decline and increasing your ability to empathize, reading books is an easy way to look after your mind and body.

Whether you’re an avid reader or wish you read more, we hope you enjoy these quotes about books and reading!

Page Contents

Quotes About Books

′Classic′ – a book which people praise and don’t read. Mark Twain

Sleep is good, he said, and books are better. George R.R. Martin

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. Charles W. Eliot

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book. Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Novel

The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night. Isabel Allende

If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book. J.K. Rowling

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. Carl Sagan

When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes. Erasmus

Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks. Dr. Seuss

That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet. Jhumpa Lahiri

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return. Salman Rushdie

I love the smell of book ink in the morning. Umberto Eco

Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book. Bill Patterson

It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially. Donna Tartt, The Secret History

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. Neil Gaiman

Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book. E.B. White

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. Charles Baudelaire

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island. Walt Disney

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading. William Styron

The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. Kurt Vonnegut

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. Groucho Marx

I love books. I adore everything about them. I love the feel of the pages on my fingertips. They are light enough to carry, yet so heavy with worlds and ideas. I love the sound of the pages flicking against my fingers. Print against fingerprints. Books make people quiet, yet they are so loud. Nnedi Okorafor

Books were my pass to personal freedom. Oprah Winfrey

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. David Mitchell

If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads. Francois Mauriac

Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories. Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest. C.S. Lewis

Wear the old coat and buy the new book. Austin Phelps

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already. George Orwell, 1984

It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. C.S. Lewis

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Reading one book is like eating one potato chip. Diane Duane

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. Anne Lamott

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. Mortimer J. Adler

I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. Henry Ward Beecher

I guess there are never enough books. John Steinbeck

Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries. Anne Herbert

Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books. Ursula K. LeGuin

A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. Terry Pratchett

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. Toni Morrison

What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal! Thomas Babington Macaulay

Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper. David Quammen

You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. Paul Sweeney

I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books. Gary Paulsen

Happiness. That’s what books smells like. Happiness. That’s why I always wanted to have a book shop. What better life than to trade in happiness? Saran MacLean

Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don’t you agree? Christopher Paolini

Quotes About Reading

Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write. Annie Proulx

Reading brings us unknown friends. Honore de Belzac

My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity. Malcolm X

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere. Jean Rhys

Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while. Malorie Blackman

We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind. Anna Quindlen

Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world. Napoleon Bonaparte

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. Henry David Thoreau

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Joseph Addison

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. Harper Lee

Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I’d rather boast about the ones I’ve read. Jorge Luis Borges

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. Mary Wortley Montagu

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. Abraham Lincoln

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Rene Descartes

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive. James Baldwin

Reading—the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay. William Styron

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. Ursula K. LeGuin

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities. Ben Okri

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift. Kate DiCamillo

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage. Roald Dahl

Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we’re someone else, disrupting the delusion that we’re permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we’re saved!) other people are real again, and we’re fond of them. George Saunders

Reading—even browsing—an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search. James Gleick

Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work. Khaled Hosseini

I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time. Virginia Woolf

Reading means borrowing. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds. Roxane Gay

Read. Read. Read. Just don’t read one type of book. Read different books by various authors so that you develop different style. R.L. Stine

Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading. Rainer Maria Rilke

The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours. Alan Bennett, The History Boys

It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else. John Waters

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly. Sir Francis Bacon

The world was hers for the reading. Betty Smith

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world. Voltaire

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. Stephen King

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader. Robert Frost

Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head. Paul Auster

A peasant that reads is a prince in waiting. Walter Mosley

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul. Joyce Carol Oates

A word after a word after a word is power. Margaret Atwood

Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers. Steven Spielberg

She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. Annie Dillard

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. John Locke

Read, 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 Faulkner

Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you. Louis L’Amour

Reading was a joy, a desperately needed escape — I didn’t read to learn, I was reading to read. Christian Bauman

Reading is departure and arrival. Terri Guillemets

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” President Harry Truman

Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Nora Ephron

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. P.J. O’Rourke

Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading. Lena Dunham

The man who does not read good books is no better than the man who can’t. Mark Twain

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. Robertson Davies

Leaders are always readers. Kevin Trudeau

Ready for more reading? Check out our list of 8 Books for Graduate Students and flip some great pages today.

The Best Literary Quotes

Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting

Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today. Holbrook Jackson

Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand. Ezra Pound

I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess. H.P. Lovecraft

Think of this – that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other. A.S. Byatt, Possession

If you stop to think about it, you’ll have to admit that all the stories in the world consist essentially of twenty-six letters. The letters are always the same, only the arrangement varies. From letters words are formed, from words sentences, from sentences chapters, and from chapters stories. Michael Ende

There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away. Emily Dickinson

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. Oscar Wilde

In the end, we’ll all become stories. Margaret Atwood

Reading is my favorite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read. Anne Brontë

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can’t really put a book on the Internet. Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live. Gustave Flaubert

So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone. Roald Dahl, Matilda

Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry. Cassandra Clare

Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though. J.D. Salinger

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… the man who never reads lives only one. George R.R. Martin

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read. Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth

I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. Robert Louis Stevenson

Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them. Lemony Snicket, Horseradish

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond. C.S. Lewis

Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo had said…”As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells…and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower…both strange and familiar. Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own. John Berger, Keeping a Rendezvous

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief. Franz Kafka

We hope you’ve loved these quotes about books and reading.

It’s never too late (or early) to expand your horizons and start reading, and reading books is even good for your physical and mental health . So star turning those pages and getting inspired through reading today.

Natalie Seale

The 100 Best Quotes About Reading

You know our goal at Bookroo is to help you spend less time searching for books so you can spend more time reading! That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the 100 best quotes about reading. Read on to see the many insightful, witty, and motivating things that have been said about reading by authors, poets, scientists, artists, visionaries and even comedians.

Let us know in the comments below which is your favorite, and what quotes you would add to the list!

“ A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one. ” - George R.R. Martin

“ Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. ” - Harper Lee

“ Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them. ” - Lemony Snicket

“ You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ” - C.S. Lewis

“ Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary. ” - Jim Rohn

“ I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. ” - Groucho Marx

“ ‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read. ” - Mark Twain

“ You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. ” - Ray Bradbury

“ So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall. ” - Roald Dahl

“ Think before you speak. Read before you think. ” - Fran Lebowitz

“ Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading. ” - Lena Dunham

“ That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet. ” - Jhumpa Lahiri

“ The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries. ” - Descartes

“ In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. ” - Mortimer J. Adler

“ Reading one book is like eating one potato chip. ” - Diane Duane

“ The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. ” - Dr. Seuss

“ Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while. ” - Malorie Blackman

“ Books are a uniquely portable magic. ” - Stephen King

“ I read a book one day and my whole life was changed. ” - Orhan Pamuk

“ People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading. ” - Logan Pearsall Smith

“ Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. ” - Margaret Fuller

“ People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned. ” - Saul Bellow

“ A good book is an event in my life. ” - Stendhal

“ Reading brings us unknown friends ” - Honoré de Balzac

“ The world was hers for the reading. ” - Betty Smith

“ I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. ” - Robert Louis Stevenson

“ The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn’t know how to read. ” - Benjamin Franklin

“ Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you. ” - Louis L’Amour

“ Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. ” - Fernando Pessoa

“ No. I can survive well enough on my own—if given the proper reading material. ” - Sarah J. Maas

“ There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island. ” - Walt Disney

“ We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read. ” - Jules Verne

“ A room without books is like a body without a soul. ” - Cicero

“ My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity. ” - Malcolm X

“ It’s not that I don’t like people. It’s just that when I’m in the company of others – even my nearest and dearest – there always comes a moment when I’d rather be reading a book. ” - Maureen Corrigan

“ Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them. ” - Arnold Lobel

“ There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read—unless it be reading while you eat. ” - E. Nesbit

“ One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. ” - Carl Sagan

“ I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage. ” - Roald Dahl

“ Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand. ” - Ezra Pound

“ If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. ” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“ Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. ” - P.J. O’Rourke

“ Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book. ” - Jane Smiley

“ Beware of the person of one book. ” - Thomas Aquinas

“ Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. ” - Henry David Thoreau

“ Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself. ” - George Bernard Shaw

“ Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all. ” - Abraham Lincoln

“ I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once. ” - C.S. Lewis

“ You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. ” - Paul Sweeney

“ Some books leave us free and some books make us free. ” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“ Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. ” - Frederick Douglas

“ There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all. ” - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

“ Wear the old coat and buy the new book. ” - Austin Phelps

“ “You may have tangible wealth untold. Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be — I had a mother who read to me. ” - Strickland Gillilan

“ The man who does not read good books is no better than the man who can’t. ” - Mark Twain

“ To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark. ” - Victor Hugo

“ Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words! ” - Betty Smith

“ A book is a gift you can open again and again. ” - Garrison Keillor

“ Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks. ” - Dr. Seuss

“ Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world. ” - Napoléon Bonaparte

“ A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. ” - Italo Calvino

“ I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. ” - Jorge Luis Borges

“ Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere. ” - Mary Schmich

“ No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. ” - Mary Wortley Montagu

“ I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them. ” - Emma Thompson

“ If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books. ” - Roald Dahl

“ That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend and a good library. ” - Aphra Behn

“ To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. ” - W. Somerset Maugham

“ Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book. ” - Bill Watterson

“ These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone. ” - Roald Dahl

“ I guess there are never enough books. ” - John Steinbeck

“ Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day. ” - Voltaire

“ If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book. ” - J.K. Rowling

“ Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries. ” - Anne Herbert

“ Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading. ” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“ Children are made readers on the laps of their parents. ” - Emilie Buchwald

“ I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess. ” - H.P. Lovecraft

“ Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book. ” - E.B. White

“ Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait on line for Santa, or some such inconvenience. ” - David Levithan

“ Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read. ” - Groucho Marx

“ Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. ” - Albert Einstein

“ I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die. ” - Patrick Rothfuss

“ There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away ” - Emily Dickinson

“ I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down. ” - Edgar Allan Poe

“ Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. ” - Henry Ward Beecher

“ I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. ” - Woody Allen

“ There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. ” - Joseph Brodsky

“ When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young. ” - Maya Angelou

“ I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library. ” - Jane Austen

“ Books break the shackles of time – proof that humans can work magic. ” - Carl Sagan

“ Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for. ” - Socrates

“ For my whole life, my favorite activity was reading. It’s not the most social pastime. ” - Audrey Hepburn

“ Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. ” - Gary Paulsen

“ [F]rom the reading of ‘good books’ there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way. ” - Gordon B. Hinckley

“ Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste. ” - Voltaire

“ How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. ” - Henry David Thoreau

“ Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life. ” - Mortimer J. Adler

“ A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest. ” - C.S. Lewis

“ It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. ” - Arthur Conan Doyle

“ Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. ” - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“ What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows and the lamp burning bright. ” - Gustave Flaubert

“ I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. ” - Wisława Szymborska

“ Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today. ” - Holbrook Jackson

“ You're never too old, too wacky, too wild to pick up a book and read to a child. ” - Anita Merina

“ Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper. ” - David Quammen

“ Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or a duty. It should be offered as a gift. ” - Kate DiCamillo

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80 Inspiring Quotes About Books and Reading

Books are important for the mind, heart, and soul. But don't take it from us: These quotes about reading speak for themselves.

By Stefanie Hargreaves

The power to be found between the pages of a book is formidable, indeed. And these 80 inspiring quotes about books and importance of reading are here to remind you of that. From beloved bestsellers to iconic celebrities, these quotes exemplify the benefits of reading and of a good books to comfort, challenge, and inspire you. For, as author Anna Quindlen says, "Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home."

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." – Margaret Fuller

"A word after a word after a word is power." – Margaret Atwood

"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time." – Carl Sagan

"Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world." – Napoleon Bonaparte

"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors." – Charles Baudelaire

"When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young." – Maya Angelou

"Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift." – Kate DiCamillo

"I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them." – Emma Thompson

"It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else." – John Waters

"Books are a uniquely portable magic." – Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"Books are mirrors: You only see in them what you already have inside you." – Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Think before you speak. Read before you think. – Fran Lebowitz

"Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading." – Lena Dunham

"If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book." – J.K. Rowling

"I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book." – Benedict Cumberbatch

"Some books leave us free and some books make us free." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: They feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship." – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live." – Joan Didion, The White Album

"Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world." – Jeanette Winterson

"A good would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit." – David Sedaris

"Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time." – Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

We read to know we are not alone. – C.S. Lewis

"As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul." – Ursula K. Le Guin

"It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in." – Naomi Shihab Nye, I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven

"Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading." – Susan Sontag

"Have books ‘happened’ to you? Unless your answer to that question is ‘yes,’ I’m unsure how to talk to you." – Haruki Murakami

"A story can always break into pieces while it sits inside a book on a shelf; and, decades after we have read it even twenty times, it can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth." – Andre Dubus, Meditations from a Movable Chair

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." – Frederick Douglass

"Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from one generation to the next. Books save lives." – Laurie Anderson

"Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps." – Ann Patchett

"Both reading and writing are experiences – lifelong – in the course of which we who encounter words used in certain ways are persuaded by them to be brought mind and heart within the presence, the power, of the imagination." – Eudora Welty

A room without books is like a body without a soul. – Cicero

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries." – Rene Descartes

"That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet." – Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

"I love the way that each book — any book — is its own journey. You open it, and off you go…" – Sharon Creech

"Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while." – Malorie Blackman

"Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we’re someone else, disrupting the delusion that we’re permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we’re saved!) other people are real again, and we’re fond of them." – George Saunders

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading." – William Styron

"I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves." – David Foster Wallace

"Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real." – Nora Ephron

"Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere." – Jean Rhys

"Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds." – Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive." – James Baldwin

"Reading is important. If you know how to read, then the whole world opens up to you." – Barack Obama

"That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong." – F. Scott Fitzgerald

"We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: We need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever." – Philip Pullman

"Books may well be the only true magic." – Alice Hoffman, Magic Lessons

"Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know." – Alberto Manguel, A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books

"A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on, you are enriched threefold." – Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

"Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work." – Khaled Hosseini

"It is known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else." – Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

"If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads." – François Mauriac

"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life." – W. Somerset Maugham, Books And You

"I don't read a book; I hold a conversation with the author." – Elbert Hubbard

"Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again." – Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one." – George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

"Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly." – Sir Francis Bacon

"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul." – Joyce Carol Oates

"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe." – Madeleine L'Engle

"Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let's not forget this." – Dave Eggers

"Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times? As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells... and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like pressed flower... both strange and familiar." – Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

"The best books... are those that tell you what you know already." – George Orwell, 1984

"Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one's own self." – Franz Kafka

"Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head." – Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labelled 'This could change your life.'" – Helen Exley

"There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things." – Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book." – John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something–a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things–which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours." – Alan Bennett, The History Boys

"Reading is essential for those who seek to rise about the ordinary." – Jim Rohn

"The story is truly finished–and meaning is made–not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters." – Celeste Ng

"One must always be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us." – Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

"A book is a gift you can open again and again." – Garrison Kellor

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." – Charles W. Eliot

"Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?" – Christopher Paolini

"Once you've read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you." – Louis L'Amour

"The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us." – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive–all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment." – Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

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