I'd Rather Be Reading Quotes

“But the truths of many readers’ reading lives make them uncomfortable; their gap isn’t a source of amusement, but frustration. They’re certain their taste is questionable, their opinions are wrong, their reading habits are poor, and it’s only a matter of time before the Book Police track them down. They’re carrying guilty reading secrets that make them feel as though they aren’t real readers. They’re partly terrified of being found out and partly feel they might burst if they can’t tell someone their bookish secrets.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“You take five books to the pool because you can’t decide what to read next. You can’t comfortably manage your purse because you shoved three books in on the way out the door, unable to decide what to read next. You pack twelve books for a five-day vacation because you can’t decide what to read next.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“I'm all the readers I have been. . . .

I'm still the twentysomething who doesn't know how to vet contemporary fiction, the new releases filling the bookstore shelves that haven't yet had the opportunity to stand the test of time, who somehow keeps finding her way to one modern lackluster title after another until—burned by too many disappointing modern works—she decides to reacquaint herself with the works that have endured: Jane Austen, Jane Eyre Anna Karenina. (And thereby learning the timeless lesson that would serve me well in the years to come: if you're looking for a great book, going old is never a terrible idea.)”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“I was in college when I first saw You've Got Mail, and I loved Kathleen Kelly instantly. I was mostly past my wistful gade-school days of wishing myself into every novel I read, but I was alarmingly struck by how she echoed my old fear of settling for my real life, musing in one scene, "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?"

Her impetus was this: once she'd read a story about a butterfly in a subway train, and then...she saw one! The film shows Kathleen rattling along on the train, an open book in her lap, when a butterfly suddenly flits into her field of vision. You can see her visceral delight. That thing she'd only read about had come true.

Yet she wondered if her experience was cheapened because she'd read it before she lived it, and my twenty-year-old self wondered right along with her. But I'm not the girl--or the reader--I was then, and I now know the times when reading cheapens anything are few and far between. I've seen how our on -the-page experiences set the stage for our actual lives. Our books frame the scenes for us so we can better understand and experience what's happening when it happens to us--”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“They ordered pizza so they could skip making dinner and finish their book. They ate cereal for dinner so they could finish their book. They forgot to eat dinner because they were finishing their book. The last time they finished a great story, the book hangover lasted three days. They were so caught up in their book that they let the kids draw on the walls so they could get to the last page. They locked themselves in the bathroom so they could read undisturbed. They think they might love books too much. Whatever it may be, they’re sure they’re the only one with this issue. Reader, whatever secret you’re keeping, it’s time to spill it. I’ll take your confession, but the absolution is unnecessary. These secrets aren’t sins; they’re just secrets. No need to repent. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Friendship . . . is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” Reader, you’re not the only one. Keep confessing to your fellow readers; tell them what your reading life is really like. They’ll understand. They may even say, “You too?” And when they do, you’ve found a friend. And the beginnings of a great book club.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“Readers want to discover what they want to read, and they want to discover it for themselves.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Friendship . . . is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“For everyone who’s ever finished a book under the covers with a flashlight when they were supposed to be sleeping”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“Why this book, or that one? I never know at the time. Sometimes, of course, I seek out a book I need. But sometimes it’s more apt to say the book seeks me. I’ve learned books move in mysterious ways, and I’d do well to pay attention.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“I don’t carefully plan—and yet it’s uncanny how often I seem to be reading just the right book at just the right time. Sometimes I feel compelled to read a book—or someone feels compelled to recommend it—for reasons I can’t discern, and only later do I find it’s essential to me, right then. Not before I started reading it, but after. The book may seem random when I choose it, but halfway through I realize, I need this right now.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“For everyone who’s ever finished a book
under the covers with a flashlight
when they were supposed to be sleeping.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“A good book, when we return to it, will always have something new to say. It’s not the same book, and we’re not the same reader.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“To hand you a great book, I don’t just need to know about books; I need to know you.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“Just as I’m all the ages I have been, I’m all the readers I have been.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“I have hopes and dreams for my kids, as parents do. I hope they’ll live right and live well, find love and fulfilling work, and not endure too much heartbreak on the way. And I also, specifically, hope that one day—when they’re old enough to choose for themselves, apart from me—they’ll discover that they too are book people. One day, not as far off as I would like, they’ll head to the bookstore with friends, or on a date, or on a quiet weekend afternoon to spend a pleasant hour by themselves. Not out of habit or duty, but because reading is part of who they are. It’s in their blood. They’re book people.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“We don’t enter adulthood as fully formed adults, nor do we enter adulthood as fully formed readers. When I graduated, I knew I still had a lot of growing up to do, but nobody told me I had to grow up as a reader too. Every reader goes through this rite of passage: the transition from having books chosen for us to choosing books for ourselves. When given the choice, some choose not to read. But you, dear reader, moved from being told what to read to choosing for yourself.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“Even on vacation, a good deadline spurs me to read more: if I don’t finish at least half of the physical books I brought on vacation, I’ll feel like a failure”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“You want to tell the world about a book you loved, but you fear your friends won’t be able to see past the terrible cover. You want to tell the world about a book you loved, but the title is stupid. You realize midsentence that you have no idea how to say a certain word out loud, because until now you’ve only said it to yourself, in your head, while reading.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“she said, “I know you’re a reader. I want to read more, and I need some ideas. Tell me your favorite novel. Or a book that’s changed your life. Anything.” I love talking books with friends and strangers alike, but as I opened my mouth to answer, I realized that she’d just asked an extremely personal question. Aside from the sheer impossibility of choosing just one favorite book, her question was daunting for another reason: I felt like I’d been asked to lay my soul on the table. Reading is personal and never more so than when we’re sharing why we connect with certain books.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“But avid readers know a great book doesn’t exist only in the realm of the material. The words between those covers bring whole worlds to life. When I think of the characters and stories and ideas contained on a single shelf of my personal library, it boggles my mind. To readers, those books—the ones we buy and borrow and trade and sell—are more than objects. They are opportunities beckoning us. When we read, we connect with them (or don’t) in a personal way. Sometimes the personal nature of reading is kind of a pain, making it difficult to find a great book for an individual reader. Sometimes finding the right book feels like a hassle—especially if you’re standing in the bookstore aisle or perusing the library stacks or even scrutinizing the teetering pile on your nightstand, debating what to read next—when all you want to do is find a book you will love, that you’ll close in the span of a few hours or days or weeks and say, “That was amazing.” A great book. That’s all you want. But reading is personal. We can’t know what a book will mean to us until we read it. And so we take a leap and choose.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“You realize midsentence that you have no idea how to say a certain word out loud, because until now you've only said to yourself, in your head, while reading.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“Some readers meticulously record the dates they read each title and where they were when they read it.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Friendship . . . is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“I'm all the readers I have been. . . .

I'm still the thirty-year-old discovering the pleasures of returning over and over again to a good novel, the reader who learned that you don't have to be a kid to read kid lit, who revisited Anne and Emily and Valancy, who indulged in the pleasures of filling the inexplicable gaps in her book-filled childhood, remedying the situation by speeding through all the Little House books, then the Bestsy-Tacy books, and the Shoe series. Who blazed through all the Harry Potters in ten days,because they were that good.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“You’re a book lover; you don’t have enough shelves to begin with. Ignore the decorators.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“Record you books as a gift to your future self, a travelogue you'll be able to pull off the shelf years from now, to remember the journey.

We are readers. Books grace our shelves and fill our homes with beauty; they dwell in our minds and occupy our thoughts. . . Good reading journals provide glimpses of how we spent our days, and they tell the story of our lives.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“It conjures a mental image of where I was when I read it, where I got it and - most of the time why I picked it up in the first place, as well as what I thought about it. Did I like it or not and how did it make me feel? All this from one line of a reading log.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“And yet, even if I were to read one book every day, that's just 365 books a year - an impressive statistic in a conversation about reading habits, but a mere fraction of the titles published in just a week.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“. . . from an early age, and without consciously intending to, the ideas I got from books formed the interior architecture of my mind.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

“Our books frame the scene for us so we can better understand and experience what's happening when it happens to us - whether it's transitioning to a new line of work or grieving an unexpected loss or vacationing in Tuscany.”
― Anne Bogel, I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life