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Bookworms, rejoice! This is an article dedicated to you, to books, and the pleasures of reading! And, although you yourself, having read an uncountable number of books throughout your lifetime, have something to say about the goodness that is reading, why not expand your horizons further with these beautiful reading quotes here? You’ll find quotes on reading here by all the famous writers, including but not limited to J. R. R. Tolkien, Oscar Wilde, and Mark Twain. Besides the writers, other famous figures also had their fair share of thoughts about the importance of books, and their words are as good, and at times might even be better, than those of writers.
Whether you are a fully-fledged bookworm with a room or a nook dedicated to reading pleasures in your home, or just recently found a passion for books, these book quotes will either kindle the love’s flame to an uproarious fire or inspire you to spend even more time reading. Either way, we’ve gathered here today to listen to the beautiful, inspiring words together!
So, let's get ourselves ready to witness once again the undeniable force that is reading by immersing ourselves in these beautiful quotes on books. As per usual, the list starts just a smidgen down below, so grab your reading glasses, and go straight there! These quotes about the magic of reading are all the very best, but one will definitely be your favorite, so give a vote for it. After you are done, share this article with your bibliophile friends!
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#1
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” — George R. R. Martin
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#2
“Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading.” - Lena Dunham
#3
“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” — Carl Sagan
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Some people read - but do not get into a book to me when I read I'm in that book beside the people there!
#4
“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I just got an Unabridged Book of Edgar Allen Poe from a Junk store for a buck I feel so lucky!
#5
“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.” — Carl Sagan
#6
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” — Groucho Marx
#7
“A book is a gift you can open again and again.” - Garrison Keillor
Mary Rose Kent 2 years ago
There are books I reread every two to five years and I assume I’m not alone in this.
#8
“You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.” — Paul Sweeney
#9
“Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.” — Stephen Fry
Ariom Dahl 2 years ago
I love 'real' books but a Kindle is so convenient -- countless books at my fingertips.
#10
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” — Haruki Murakami
Stephanie Did It 2 years ago
I ignore the 'Must Read' lists and pick the authors and genres that I like. My library is quite eclectic.
#11
“The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn’t know how to read.” - Benjamin Franklin
#12
“If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” — J.K. Rowling
Lady of the Mountains 2 years ago
I quote thsi all the time, but wasn't sure if it was from her or not. now I know :)
#13
“I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.” — H.P. Lovecraft
Mary Rose Kent 2 years ago
I used to be this way, but I moved around too much to stay this way. Plus, libraries! I’m very fortunate that I’m a mere walk around the block from mine.
#14
“I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.” — C.S. Lewis
#15
“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” — Jim Rohn
#16
“Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.“ — Jean Rhys
#17
“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.” — Louis L’Amour
#18
““You may have tangible wealth untold. Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be — I had a mother who read to me.” - Strickland Gillilan
Mary Rose Kent 2 years ago
I can remember being three or four, snuggled up against my grandfather as he read me The Three Billy Goats Gruff. There was a feeling of complete safety and it was absolutely saturated with love.
#19
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” — Stephen King
#20
“A good book is an event in my life.” — Stendhal
#21
“Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.” - Henry Ward Beecher
#22
“Fairytales don’t tell children that dragons exist… Fairytales tell children that dragons can be killed.” — Gilbert K. Chesterton
alwaysMispelled 2 years ago
Yessss! They tell children that they can overcome adversity and triumph! That they should have hope!
#23
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” — C. S. Lewis
#24
“These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.” — Roald Dahl
#25
“I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.” — Wisława Szymborska
#26
“Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper.” — David Quammen
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
You have got to have a preponderance of books you have not read because all lives need possibilities!
#27
“Reading—the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.“ — William Styron
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Being alone with a book is not loneliness - you will have more company, friends and maybe if you are lucky some enemies to tangle with!
#28
“Reading was a joy, a desperately needed escape — I didn’t read to learn, I was reading to read.” – Christian Bauman
#29
“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.” — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I loved our detached Garage window light a bale of hay my dog a book and me!
#30
“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall.” - Roald Dahl
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Bookshelves are not needed -floors are and as for TV only old movies please where the actors act (with their clothes on) some sing and dance! And there is no need to shoot zombies in the head!
#31
“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” — Descartes
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
And some of the present are worth taking note of! But you gotta be picky!
#32
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” - Dr. Seuss
#33
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” - Frederick Douglas
#34
“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.” — Mary Wortley Montagu
#35
“Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.” — E.B. White
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
If only I could write a book - I could become immortal - even if no one read it!
#36
“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
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Reread the books they told you to read in high school you'll be amazed at how good they have gotten since then!
#37
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” — Joseph Brodsky
#38
“‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read.” - Mark Twain
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I think that is true - it depends on who is saying it's a classic and the same class of people tend to agree!
#39
“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.” - Logan Pearsall Smith
#40
“Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words!” - Betty Smith
Stephanie Did It 2 years ago
Quote from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, one of my all-time favorites.
#41
“For my whole life, my favorite activity was reading. It’s not the most social pastime.” — Audrey Hepburn
#42
“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.” —Diane Duane
#43
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read.” — Mark Twain
#44
“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” — Emilie Buchwald
#45
“It’s not that I don’t like people. It’s just that when I’m in the company of others – even my nearest and dearest – there always comes a moment when I’d rather be reading a book.” — Maureen Corrigan
#46
“Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait on line for Santa, or some such inconvenience.” — David Levithan
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
My purse always contains a book for this same reason - and if it's heavy enough - it makes a good weapon if necessary!
#47
“We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind.“ — Anna Quindlen
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I do have a problem with reading in bed it does not make me sleepy it makes me want to keep turning the pages!
#48
“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
WildHoneyPie 2 years ago
Hmm, that's a pretty wide open field. I'll read just about anything. Except perhaps L. Ron Hubbard, Stephenie Meyer and E. L. James because I just can't wade through them.
#49
“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.” — Samuel Johnson
#50
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” - Jhumpa Lahiri
#51
“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.” — Walt Disney
#52
“There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read—unless it be reading while you eat.” — E. Nesbit
#53
“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.” — Roald Dahl
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I cannot think of a parent not wanting a child to read - i i have a friend - there are no books in the house except a crossword dictionary. I don't go there much!
#54
“Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.” — Voltaire
#55
“I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.” — Patrick Rothfuss
#56
“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” – John Locke
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
In other words - reading words without thinking is not learning at all!
#57
“I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough… The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.” — John Adams
#58
“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” — P. J. O’Rourke
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Now that's a great idea - but there are so many how does one choose!
#59
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” - Ray Bradbury
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Well then you got one big fight on your hands - even if it is only a party of one!
#60
“Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.” — Mary Schmich
#61
“Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.” — Anne Herbert
Stephanie Did It 2 years ago
Books are the only things that allowed me to cope with my life as a child; they were my escape!
#62
“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or a duty. It should be offered as a gift.” — Kate DiCamillo
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
But schools try to force students to read things that don't interest them and they develop a dislike for reading!
#63
“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” — Henry Ward Beecher
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I really like junk stores and bookstores that are not classy- assy they have these books because they have been someone treasures before!
#64
“If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.” — François Mauriac
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Sometimes what a man rereads he is doing it because nothing else is available!
#65
“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.” — Jane Smiley
#66
“People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.” — Saul Bellow
#67
“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.” — Toni Morrison
#68
“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” — Lemony Snicket
#69
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” - Mortimer J. Adler
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
If they are not getting through to me I put them down for another time when I will try to let them get through to me!
#70
“The world was hers for the reading.” - Betty Smith
#71
“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.” - Fernando Pessoa
#72
“We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.” — Jules Verne
#73
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” — Cicero
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I have no perception of soul - but a room without books does not exist!
#74
“I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.” — Emma Thompson
#75
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” — W. Somerset Maugham
#76
“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.” — Socrates
#77
“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.” – Charles Baudelaire
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I sir, have experienced all of these and hope to till the day I die!
#78
“Come to the book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it and draw your own map.” – Stephen King
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Mr. King some time the way you write you make people have to draw their own maps! Thanks!
#79
“I have always imagined paradise as a kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges.
#80
“My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” — Malcolm X
#81
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” — Oscar Wilde
#82
“Books are the ultimate dump-ees: Put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.” — John Green
#83
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” — Harper Lee
#84
“When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness.” — Vincent Starrett
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
should be a better word to describe collecting books Something classy but not ostentatious!
#85
“A beggar’s book out-worths a noble’s blood.” — William Shakespeare
#86
“Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.” — Vera Nazarian
#87
“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” - Malorie Blackman
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Yes this is why more people should do it on a regular basis you know like jogging!
#88
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” - Margaret Fuller
#89
“Reading brings us unknown friends” - Honoré de Balzac
#90
“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
#91
“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.” — Abraham Lincoln
#92
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” — Jane Austen
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
My library may not be excellent because your and my idea of excellence are probably very different - I don't care what kind of books you have as long as they are well read!
#93
“Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today.” — Holbrook Jackson
#94
“Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.“ — Khaled Hosseini
#95
“Keep reading. It’s one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have.” – Lloyd Alexander
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
In a book you can do anything, become anything from a slave to a hero!
#96
“Think before you speak. Read before you think.” — Fran Lebowitz
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Sometimes the most intelligent one in the room is the one who does not speak at all!
#97
“Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book.” — Stéphane Mallarmé
#98
“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
An excellent Idea - I guess it's never too late to add one to write in!
#99
“Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them.” — Arnold Lobel
#100
“Beware of the person of one book.” — Thomas Aquinas
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Wise man! I have these kind in my family! Where I find distance satisfying!
#101
“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” — Henry David Thoreau
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
The best books don't have to be "The Classics" but those that are classic to you!
#102
“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.” - Napoléon Bonaparte
#103
“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” - Italo Calvino
#104
“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
#105
“There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away” — Emily Dickinson
#106
“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.” — Maya Angelou
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
We all have something that makes us want to try to find ourselves reading does a body good!
#108
“Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.” — Mortimer J. Adler
#109
“What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows and the lamp burning bright.” — Gustave Flaubert
#110
“Reading means borrowing.“ — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Yes I think that is right - to read another mans words is like reusing the ideas you learn!
#111
“A good book has no ending.” — R. D. Cumming
#112
“No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books.” — Romain Rolland
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I sort of put myself in the book, because if I don't I won't understand it!
#113
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” — Groucho Marx
#114
“Literature is news that stays news.” — Ezra Pound
#115
“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.” - Orhan Pamuk
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I like trying t o read a whole book in one day Then I can consider that day not wasted!
#116
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” - Victor Hugo
#117
“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” — Bill Watterson
#118
“I guess there are never enough books.” — John Steinbeck
#119
“I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.” — Woody Allen
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Reading should be done leisurely, comfortably and only paying attention to the book in hand!
#120
“From the reading of ‘good books’ there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way.” - Gordon B. Hinckley
#121
“Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.“ — Ben Okri
#122
“I leapt eagerly into books. The characters’ lives were so much more interesting than the lonely heartbeat of my own.” – Ruta Sepetys
#123
“Reading takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.” — Hazel Rochman
#124
“Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.” — Kathleen Norris
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I have to be honest - I broke up with a guy because I wanted to finish a book I had started! The book was more interesting than he was!
#125
“No. I can survive well enough on my own—if given the proper reading material.” — Sarah J. Maas
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
I don't know what I would do if I did not have a book and a dog to come home to!
#126
“Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand.” — Ezra Pound
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Do any people read books if it does not please them? If so their time is wasted!
#127
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.” — Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Guess I'm well on my way to madness! I hope its a happy place with more books!
#128
“You're never too old, too wacky, too wild to pick up a book and read to a child.” — Anita Merina
#129
“Reading—even browsing—an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search.“ — James Gleick
#130
“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.” — Henry David Thoreau
#131
“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.” — Arthur Conan Doyle
Raja Mohammed 2 years ago
A writer feels this way whether he publishes his book or not, I know. It's good to know you can write in the first place
#132
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.“ — Ursula K. Le Guin
#133
“Reading is departure and arrival.“ —Terri Guillemets
#134
“I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.” — Edgar Allan Poe
Mistralok 2 years ago
It is likely that some troubles will befall us; but it is not a present fact. How often has the unexpected happened! How often has the expected never come to pass! And even though it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering? You will suffer soon enough, when it arrives; so look forward meanwhile to better things. What shall you gain by doing this? Time. There will be many happenings meanwhile which will serve to postpone, or end, or pass on to another person, the trials which are near or even in your very presence. A fire has opened the way to flight. Men have been let down softly by a catastrophe. Sometimes the sword has been checked even at the victim’s throat. Men have survived their own executioners. Even bad fortune is fickle. Perhaps it will come, perhaps not; in the meantime it is not. So look forward to better things. -Seneca-
What do you think ?
Leo Domitrix 2 years ago
My fave of all time is attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "My best friend is a (person) who gives me a book I haven't read yet."
Effseven Six 2 years ago
I'm not avid reader, though I'm beginning to be. The few book I have read I remember clearly and love them as dearly now as I did back then. I'm beginning to see books as movies, and I get more excited every time I write one down on my list.
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Books are like a drug to me I have to get my fix every day! I hope the day never comes when I can't do this. I don't know who said this but: Books give soul to the universe, Wings to the mind. Flight to the imagination.
Leo Domitrix 2 years ago
My fave of all time is attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "My best friend is a (person) who gives me a book I haven't read yet."
Effseven Six 2 years ago
I'm not avid reader, though I'm beginning to be. The few book I have read I remember clearly and love them as dearly now as I did back then. I'm beginning to see books as movies, and I get more excited every time I write one down on my list.
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Books are like a drug to me I have to get my fix every day! I hope the day never comes when I can't do this. I don't know who said this but: Books give soul to the universe, Wings to the mind. Flight to the imagination.
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