R is for Reading

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net

This post was originally meant to be about the way reading can improve your writing, but, while looking for the exact wording of the famous Stephen King quote ("If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time [or the tools] to write.") I came across so many others about the act of reading that I have had to make a slight change. Reading as it relates to writing will be saved for a future date, today I want to share with you just some of the brilliant quotes I found.

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." Dr Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading." William Styron

"Books are a uniquely portable magic." Stephen King

"Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times? Mo had said ... "As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells ... and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower ... both strange and familiar." Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul." Joyce Carol Oates

"Books are like mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you." Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

"For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die." Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book." Jane Smiley

"It's not that I don't like people. It's just that when I'm in the company of others - even my nearest and dearest - there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book." Maureen Corrigan

"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life." W Somerset Maugham

All of these quotes were on the Goodreads page Quotes about Reading. There are over 2,000 on there and I had to stop at 90 before I lost an entire day, view it at your own peril.

Do you have favourite quotes about reading? Share in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you.