#reading

Literature duplicates the experience of living in a way that nothing else can, drawing you so fully into another life that you temporarily forget you have one of your own. That is why you read it, and might even sit up in bed till early dawn, trowing your whole tomorrow out of whack, simply to find out what happens to some people who, you know perfectly well, are made up. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolve

#literature #reading #experience

I am no novel-reader -- I seldom look into novels -- Do not imagine that I often read novels -- It is really very well for a novel." Such is the common cant. "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 #snobbery #words #imagination

...the reader who plucks a book from her shelf only once is as deprived as the listener who, after attending a single performance of a Beethoven symphony, never hears it again. ↗

— Anne Fadiman

#rereading #love

A book is a magic carpet that flies you off somewhere. A book is a door. You open it. You step through. Do you come back? ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#imagination #reading #imagination

Un libro leído a medias es una aventura amorosa incompleta. ↗

— David Mitchell

#book #books #español #lectura #leer

Deep layers of context are missed when cursorily reading for quantity at the expense of comprehension - only the vapid are impressed by those who try to squeeze as many books as possible into each passing month as if shoving one more oiled hot dog down the gullet in a food eating contest to prove accumulation superiority. ↗

— Wil Zeus

#honesty #honor #inspirational #integrity #life-lesson

Love so sprang at her, she honestly thought no one had ever looked into it. Where was it in literature? Someone would have written something. She must not have recognized it. Time to read everything again. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#reading #love

I love pop culture -- the Rolling Stones, the Doors, David Lynch, things like that. That's why I said I don't like elitism. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#literary-references #pop-culture #reading #writing #love

With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it’s essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly underappreciated fact that language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint. I realize it may seem obvious, but it’s surprising how easily we lose sight of the fact that words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted. ↗

— Francine Prose

#love

He kissed me for a long moment, holding my shoulders, perhaps to keep me from pressing my whole body against his. Then he tried to lift my bag. "My God," he said. "What happened?" "I found out one may check out twenty books at a time from the school library. ↗

— Laura Whitcomb

#humor #kiss #laura-whitcomb #library #reading