Jamie > Jamie's Quotes

“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

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”
― Sir Francis Bacon

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire

“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

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book.”
― Stéphane Mallarmé

“Reader's Bill of Rights

1. The right to not read

2. The right to skip pages

3. The right to not finish

4. The right to reread

5. The right to read anything

6. The right to escapism

7. The right to read anywhere

8. The right to browse

9. The right to read out loud

10. The right to not defend your tastes”
― Daniel Pennac

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
― Margaret Fuller

“Why do I read?
I just can't help myself.
I read to learn and to grow, to laugh
and to be motivated.
I read to understand things I've never
been exposed to.
I read when I'm crabby, when I've just
said monumentally dumb things to the
people I love.
I read for strength to help me when I
feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.
I read when I'm angry at the whole
world.
I read when everything is going right.
I read to find hope.
I read because I'm made up not just of
skin and bones, of sights, feelings,
and a deep need for chocolate, but I'm
also made up of words.
Words describe my thoughts and what's
hidden in my heart.
Words are alive--when I've found a
story that I love, I read it again and
again, like playing a favorite song
over and over.
Reading isn't passive--I enter the
story with the characters, breathe
their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they're
about to do something stupid, cry with
them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a
friend.
A book is a friend.
You can never have too many.”
― Gary Paulsen, Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

“If you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs.”
― Anne Fadiman

“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.”
― Angela Carter

“I am a part of everything that I have read.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Reading changes your life. Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travelers around the world and through time. Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education. Through characters – the saints and the sinners, real or imagined – reading shows you how to be a better human being.”
― Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child

“Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.”
― Mortimer J. Adler

“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, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
― Harry S. Truman