How to Read a Book Quotes

“STEP 3 IN SYNTOPICAL READING: GETTING THE QUESTIONS CLEAR”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“STEP 2 IN SYNTOPICAL READING: BRINGING THE AUTHORS TO TERMS”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“STEP 1 IN SYNTOPICAL READING: FINDING THE RELEVANT PASSAGES”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“The first thing to do when you have amassed your bibliography is to inspect all of the books on your list. You should not read any of them analytically before inspecting all of them.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“your primary obligation is not to become competent in the subject matter but instead to understand the problem.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“1. What does the author want to prove? 2. Whom does he want to convince? 3. What special knowledge does he assume? 4. What special language does he use? 5. Does he really know what he is talking about?”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“Thus the most important thing to know, when reading any report of current happenings, is who is writing the report. What is involved here is not so much an acquaintance with the reporter himself as with the kind of mind he has.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“Read biography as history and as the cause of history; take all autobiographies with a grain of salt; and never forget that you must not argue with a book until you fully understand what it is saying.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“A good historian must combine the talents of the storyteller and the scientist. He must know what is likely to have happened as well as what some witnesses or writers said actually did happen.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“The first is: if you can, read more than one history of an event or period that interests you. The second is: read a history not only to learn what really happened at a particular time and place in the past, but also to learn the way men act in all times and places, especially now.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“We are not saying that a reader should not ultimately disagree and try to show where the author is wrong. We are saying only that he should be as prepared to agree as to disagree. Whichever he does should be motivated by one consideration alone—the facts, the truth about the case.”
― Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: the classic guide to intelligent reading

“Unless you read it quickly you will fail to see the unity of the story. Unless you read intensely you will fail to see the details.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“Let the characters into your mind and heart; suspend your disbelief, if such it is, about the events. Do not disapprove of something a character does before you understand why he does it—if then. Try as hard as you can to live in his world, not in yours; there, the things he does may be quite understandable. And do not judge the world as a whole until you are sure that you have “lived” in it to the extent of your ability.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“importance of letting an imaginative book work on you.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“Read it quickly and with total immersion.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“don’t criticize imaginative writing until you fully appreciate what the author has tried to make you experience.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“To read a story well you must have your finger on the pulse of the narrative, be sensitive to its very beat.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“The scene or background, the social setting, is (like the proposition) a kind of static connection of the elements of fiction. The unraveling of the plot (like the arguments or reasoning) is the dynamic connection.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“You have become acquainted with the characters. You have joined them in the imaginary world wherein they dwell, consented to the laws of their society, breathed its air, tasted its food, traveled its highways. Now you must follow them through their adventures.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“become at home in this imaginary world; know it as if you were an observer on the scene; become a member of its population, willing to befriend its characters, and able to participate in its happenings by sympathetic insight, as you would do in the actions and sufferings of a friend.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“(2) Terms are connected in propositions. The elements of fiction are connected by the total scene or background against which they stand out in relief.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“elements of fiction are connected by the total scene or background against which they stand out in relief.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“(1) The elements of fiction are its episodes and incidents, its characters, and their thoughts, speeches, feelings, and actions. Each of these is an element in the world the author creates. By manipulating these elements, the author tells his story.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“The parts of fiction are the various steps that the author takes to develop his plot—the details of characterization and incident.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“(3) You must not only reduce the whole to its simplest unity, but you must also discover how that whole is constructed out of all its parts.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“the unity of a story is always in its plot.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“(2) You must grasp the unity of the whole work.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“(1) You must classify a work of imaginative literature according to its kind.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“We must act in such a way, when reading a story, that we let it act on us. We must allow it to move us, we must let it do whatever work it wants to do on us. We must somehow make ourselves open to it.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

“Expository books try to convey knowledge—knowledge about experiences that the reader has had or could have. Imaginative ones try to communicate an experience itself—one that the reader can have or share only by reading”
― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book