#ding

It's very difficult for a black man to get out of South-Central Los Angeles, and get out civilized....The only men I know who have escaped, all began reading Robert Heinlein at age ten. ↗

— Larry Niven

#reading #scifi #age

I started reading the Bible. All of a sudden the words jumped off the page and became real. ↗

— Austin Peck

#bible #i #jumped #off #page

School did give me one of the greatest gifts of my life, though. I learned how to read, and for that I remain thankful. I would have died otherwise. As soon as I was able, I read, alone. Under the covers with a flashlight or in my corner of the attic—I sought solace in books. It was from books that I started to get an inkling of the kinds of assholes I was dealing with. I found allies too, in books, characters my age who were going through or had triumphed against the same bullshit. ↗

— Craig Ferguson

#books #read #reading #age

I had very supportive parents that made the way for me, even at a time when there were very few women - no women, really; maybe two or three women - and very few, fewer than that, African-American women heading in this direction, so there were very few people to look up to. You just had to have faith. ↗

— Leah Ward Sears

#african-american women #american women #direction #even #faith

I just enjoy lying on the couch and reading a magazine. ↗

— David Sedaris

#enjoy #i #just #lying #magazine

I'm getting ready to write a piece now, and it's been six months thinking about it, changing the instrumentation, changing the name, doing more reading. ↗

— John Zorn

#been #changing #doing #getting #i

I liked pretending to be other people: I could reinvent myself, reinvent my own reality. ↗

— Helena Bonham Carter

#i #liked #my own #myself #other

At the same time it offered the hope, as it still does, that improved understanding could better the lot of mankind. For me, growing up in the 1930s, the two motivations powerfully reinforced each other. ↗

— James Tobin

#could #does #each #growing #growing up

The first half of life is spent mainly in finding out who we are through seeing ourselves in our interaction with others. ↗

— June Singer

#first #half #interaction #life #mainly

The older you get, the more you understand how your conscience works. The biggest and only critic lives in your perception of people's perception of you rather than people's perception of you. ↗

— Criss Jami

#biggest #confidence #conscience #control #critic