#reading

"There is only one genre in fiction, the genre is called book."

"Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really."

"My life is a reading list."

"Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic. As one tends the graves of the dead, so I tend the books. And every day I open a volume or two, read a few lines or pages, allow the voices of the forgotten dead to resonate inside my head."

"Be a King. Dare to be Different, dare to manifest your greatness."

"The problem with books is that they end."

"I don't remember ever feeling lonely; in fact, on the rare occasions when I met other children I found their games and their talk far less interesting than the adventures and dialogues I read in my books."

"In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own."

"Un libro leído a medias es una aventura amorosa incompleta."

"I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours."

"Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you."

"Don't die without fulfilling your purpose."

"Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life."

"Poetry is not the most important thing in life... I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets."

"People don't read any more. It's a sad state of affairs. Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination. When you watch films it's someone else's vision, isn't it?"[Interview in The Independent, 15 October 2005]"

"A half-read book is a half-finished love affair."

"When a man finds this kind of woman, he will go all out for her knowing that she will not be a letdown."

"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."

"You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil."

"If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all."