#reading

Books, books, books! I had found the secret of a garret room Piled high with cases in my father’s name; Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there At this or that box, pulling through the gap, In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, The first book first. And how I felt it beat Under my pillow, in the morning’s dark, An hour before the sun would let me read! My books! ↗

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

#literature #reading #terrorism

Tris: "I was reading." Sandry: "You're always reading. The only way people can ever talk to you is to interrupt." Tris: "Then maybe they shouldn't talk to me. ↗

— Tamora Pierce

#reading #sandry #talk #tris #magic

Beware the man of a single book. ↗

— St. Thomas Aquinas

#ignorance #illiteracy #limitation #ignorance

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

#independent-thought #reading #independence

Reading a book is like having the ability to dip a straw into the author’s soul and sip and slurp without lowering the water table of wisdom.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#books #reading #soul #wisdom #authority

I do not read a book; I hold a conversation with the author. ↗

— Elbert Hubbard

#authority

Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter. ↗

— Paxton Hood

#choosing #reading #reading-books #influence

It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#heart #reading #growth

Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: you have to learn the rhythm of respiration, acquire the pace; otherwise you stop right away. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#novel

As readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between taste and judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don't like. For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don't like it; I can see this is good and, though at present I don't like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see that this is trash and I don't like it. ↗

— W.H. Auden

#perseverance