“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”
― Mason Cooley
Sometimes it seems like the reader is a dying breed. People prefer to have their information delivered to them in the form of YouTube videos and Vines, but there are still a few of us who enjoy the amazing feeling that reading an engrossing story can give you. To inspire that feeling in you, we’ve collected some of the best reading quotes and book quotes from some of the most prolific writers in history.
10 Quotes to Inspire your Love of Reading
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R. R. Martin
This reading quotes inspired us that hen you open a book, you step into the shoes of the person telling the story. There is no separation between you and the protagonist, like there is in a movie or television show. You are the main character and you get the exhilaration of feeling everything that they feel, and learning what they learn as you and they both fight your way to the end of the story. It’s an amazing feeling.
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C. S. Lewis
There’s something that most readers have experienced, known as a ‘book hangover.’ It happens when you finish a good book or series and just cannot move on to the next novel in your To Be Read list. Long books can help to abate this a little bit, but there is no way to avoid the dreaded book hangover. Just grab a good hot cup of tea and ride it out.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss ( Read more quotes by Dr. Seuss )
This quotes about reading tells us that books aren’t just for learning. A fantasy or science fiction novel can teach you things that you’d never have even thought of before. It provides a new and different lens that you can use to examine the normal and mundane things in your life. You never know, you may find something in one of these fantastical stories that helps you with your everyday life.
“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” – John Green
Have you ever felt that urge to make everyone you know read the book you’ve just finished? Then you understand this lyrical quote from young adult author John Green. You can become so engrossed in a story that when it’s over, you just have to find someone to share it with. Book clubs used to be the go-to for this sort of things, but the advent of social media allows even the most reclusive reader to discuss their views with fellow fans.
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” – Groucho Marks
Groucho Marks always had a way with words. Using books to avoid the television seems like the best possible use of one’s time. Television can be useful and entertaining, but it pales in comparison to the magic contained in the pages of a book. And speaking of magic…
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King
Books are magic, period. They are doorways to amazing and fantastic worlds that once existed only within the mind of an author. They’re even more portable now, thanks to the Kindle and similar devices that allow you to carry hundreds of books at a time. No longer does the reader need to worry about bringing the next book in the series along, because they’re all available at your fingertips.
“I declare after all that there is no enjoyment like reading. How much sooner one tires of anything than a book – When I have a house of my own I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” – Jane Austen
Most girls watching Disney’s Beauty and The Beast as children wanted the prince and the castle. I just wanted the library. A house is really not a home without books, and the more books the merrier! Yes, you will never have anyone who wants to help you move your mountainous stacks of paperbacks, but it’s totally worth it right?
“A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.” – William Styron
Reading a book and feeling like you’ve run a marathon afterward is amazing. I’ve come to call it “story intoxication.” You quite literally feel like you’re drunk on the power of the storytelling. If you haven’t experienced this at least once in your life, then you need to read more books because you haven’t found the right one for you yet.
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” – Charles William Eliot
Books are amazing friends. They never gripe if you put them on a shelf in favor of another book, and they’re always there when you want to return to the world that they hold in their pages. There is no friend better than a book, save perhaps a human friend with which to share the story.
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” – Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 is one of Ray Bradbury’s most famous and consistently read novels and in spite of its title; it’s not about burning books. It’s about making people forget them. A book on a shelf cannot help anyone. You have to pull it from its dusty nest and open its covers before it can bestow its knowledge on you. Make people forget to pull them from their shelves, and you might as well have burned them. The final effect is the same.
More Reading quotes and quotes about reading
“We read to know we’re not alone.”
― William Nicholson
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
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
–Frederick Douglas
Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.
–Vera Nazarian
If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
–Oscar Wilde
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
–Henry David Thoreau
There’s nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over.
–Gail Carson Levine
It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.
–C.S. Lewis
More Book quotes
A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.
–Neil Gaiman
Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.
–J.K. Rowling
I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.
–Harold Kushner
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.
–Haruki Murakami
Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.
–John Green
There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.
–Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
–Maya Angelou
A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it or offer your own version in return.
–Salman Rushdie
In a good book the best is between the lines.
–Swedish Proverb
A good book has no ending.
–R.D. Cumming
Hopefully these reading quotes and book quotes have inspired you to pick up a book, dust off your Kindle, or head to your local book store in search of some new friends.
If you need some more inspiration, check out our Success quotes, our motivational quotes, education quotes or quotes about learning, if you need some motivation to head back to the classroom.