#read

And what are you reading, Miss - ?" "Oh! It is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. "It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. ↗

— Jane Austen

#reading #nature

Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe, stared through his window and listened to birds, as most writers who are alone do. Some do not know the names of birds, though he did. Your eye is too quick and North American. Think about the speed of his pen. What an appalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#reading #nature

Reading is accumulating knowledge. But not only that. Reading offers us every day what religion promises us for a posthumous and improbable future: the possibility of living beyond what our lifetime allows us to. ↗

— Camilo Gomes Jr.

#meaning #reading #religion #religion

Până și lectura are o funcție mitologică, nu numai pentru că înlocuiește rostirea miturilor în societățile arhaice și literatura orală, care se mai păstrează în comunitățile rurale din Europa, ci mai ales pentru că îi permite omului midern o „ieșire din timp”, asemănătoare cu cea înlesnită de mituri (...) omul modern este proiectat, prin lectură, în afara duratei sale personale și integrat altor ritmuri, trăind într-o altă „istorie”. ↗

— Mircea Eliade

#myth #reading #nature

Doctor Who: You want weapons? We're in a library. Books are the best weapon in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself! (from Tooth and Claw in Season 2) ↗

— Russell T. Davies

#knowledge #reading #weapons #knowledge

A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity. ↗

— Germaine Greer

#libraries #reading #sexuality #virginity #innocence

If your library is not "unsafe," it probably isn't doing its job. ↗

— John Berry

#libraries #library #reading #job

Reading—it’s the third best thing to do in bed.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#fornicate #fornication #read #reading #sex

... and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical; but that did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily given. ↗

— Jane Austen

#reading #satire

In the past few years I've assigned books to be read before a student attends one of my weeklong seminars. I have been astonished by how few people -- people who supposedly want to write -- read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them. ↗

— Natalie Goldberg

#reading #writing #writing-craft