- “A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.” ― Stephen King, Skeleton Crew
- “You may not attain the highest height with one leap but my dear; you will reach your destination.” ― Jaachynma N.E. Agu, The Prince and the Pauper
- “The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I know people who read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They get the meaning by glances. But they are bad readers because they miss the best part of what a good writer puts into his work.” ― Robert Frost
- “Imagine a very long time passing – and I find my way out, following someone who already knows how to leave Hell. And God says to me on Earth for the first time, “Xas!” in a tone of discovery, as if I’m a misplaced pair of spectacles or a stray dog. And he puts it to me that he wants me in Heaven. But Lucifer has doubled back – it was him I followed – to find me, where I am, in a forest, smitten, because the Lord has noticed me, and I’m overcome, as hopeless as your dog Josie whom you got rid of because she loved me.’ Xas glared at Sobran. Then he drew a breath – all had been said on only three. He went on: ‘Lucifer says to God the He can’t have me. And at this I sit up and tell Lucifer that I didn’t even think he knew my name, then say to God no thank you – very insolent this – and that Hell is endurable so long as the books keep appearing.” ― Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner’s Luck
- “The House Was Quiet and the World Was CalmThe house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page, Wanted to lean, wanted much to be The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom The summer night is like a perfection of thought. The house was quiet because it had to be. The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind: The access of perfection to the page. And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world, In which there is no other meaning, itself Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself Is the reader leaning late and reading there.” ― Wallace Stevens, Transport to Summer
- “Sit in a room and read–and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.” ― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
- “It is impossible to become the best version of yourself if you do not read, exercise, and meditate.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
- “إحدى يديه كانت منهمكة بالعبث في خصلات شعريوالأخرى كان ينفث بها سيجارته ،إلتقطتها منه بغضب وبإمتعاض ممقوتوهمست له : دعها تلك اللعينة فلن أسمح بأن تشاركني فيك !” ― نجلاء حسن, قلب صام عن هوى الرجال
- “Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and reread them…digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be ‘much not many.” ― Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students
- “The truth is, everyone likes to look down on someone. If your favorites are all avant-garde writers who throw in Sanskrit and German, you can look down on everyone. If your favorites are all Oprah Book Club books, you can at least look down on mystery readers. Mystery readers have sci-fi readers. Sci-fi can look down on fantasy. And yes, fantasy readers have their own snobbishness. I’ll bet this, though: in a hundred years, people will be writing a lot more dissertations on Harry Potter than on John Updike. Look, Charles Dickens wrote popular fiction. Shakespeare wrote popular fiction—until he wrote his sonnets, desperate to show the literati of his day that he was real artist. Edgar Allan Poe tied himself in knots because no one realized he was a genius. The core of the problem is how we want to define “literature”. The Latin root simply means “letters”. Those letters are either delivered—they connect with an audience—or they don’t. For some, that audience is a few thousand college professors and some critics. For others, its twenty million women desperate for romance in their lives. Those connections happen because the books successfully communicate something real about the human experience. Sure, there are trashy books that do really well, but that’s because there are trashy facets of humanity. What people value in their books—and thus what they count as literature—really tells you more about them than it does about the book.” ― Brent weeks
- “There is no gift of principles, you must apply them if you want to move forward.” ― Patience Johnson, Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder
- “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
- “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
- Read what you love until you love to read. Naval Ravikant
- “Before there were books, we read each other.” ― Lisa Cron, Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence
- What you read is more important than how much you read. Reading books is not a contest and there is no prize for reading most number of books. Read what you feel like reading rather than what you are supposed to read. What you read for yourself is what ultimately benefits you. @TheAncientSage
- “من ظن أنه بقراءة كتاب أو أكثر صار مفكراً .. أو أديباً.. فهو واهم، ومن أمسك بتلابيب الفتوى في أمور الدين أو الدنيا لمجرد حفظه لعشر أحاديث وبعض قصار السور فهو مفتون” ― كريم الشاذلي, مالم يخبرني به أبي عن الحياة
- Counting how many books you finish will make you a better finisher, but a worse reader. Johnny Uzan
- “أنا أخبئ بين أقفاص صدري أوجاع نساء الأرض ودموع الصغار ،أنا أحمل على عاتقي خيبات ثكلى !وفي حنجرتي تستقر حشرجة حزن مدوية ..أنا الأنثى التي تقام كل ليلة على مدائن قلبهامآتم الخذلان !وبالرغم من ذلك الأسى المفرط .. .تبتسم وتمضي دونما إكتراث !” ― نجلاء حسن, قلب صام عن هوى الرجال
- It is well sometimes to half understand a poem in the same manner that we half understand the world. G. K. Chesterton
- All of the smartest people I’ve met, regardless of where they received their formal education, were mostly self-taught, incredibly curious and voracious readers. Jim O’Shaughnessy
- “You recreate your world to your taste with God’s Word in your mouth.” ― Jaachynma N.E. Agu, The Prince and the Pauper
- When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. Arthur Schopenhauer
- No two persons ever read the same book. Edmund Wilson
- No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader. Robert Frost
- “If satan succeds in blinding your mind, he has succeeded in arresting you because anything that can stop you from believing can stop your future.” ― Patience Johnson, Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder
- In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time – none, zero. Charlie Munger
- Reading is not a chore. Reading is theft. It is a robbery. Someone smarter than you has spent 20 years beating their head against the wall trying to solve the problem you’re dealing with. You can steal that hard-won knowledge and make it yours. That is power. @TheStoicEmperor
- “A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; — not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
- “Without you discovering your true picture, it will be hard to have a glorious future. It is the discovery of what you have inside and the pursuit of it that can guarantee a glorious future” ― Patience Johnson, Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder