James Patterson Quotes

If a child wants to read 'Twilight' over Middlemarch, they should be encouraged - the important thing is to get them reading in the first place.

I'm just trying to get kids motivated to be readers by connecting them with a book they like.

Every generation likes to think that children don't read as much as they used to when they were young! You listen to some adults saying they were going around reading 'Ulysses' when they were seven or eight! I think children are voracious readers if you give them the right books and if you make those books accessible to them.

If my books can help children become readers, then I feel I have accomplished something important.

The best way to get kids reading more is to give them books that they'll gobble up - and that will make them ask for another.

It's hard recommending books for kids, and a huge responsibility. If you get it wrong, they don't tell you they hate that particular book, they tell you they hate reading.

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.

As a kid, I didn't read a great deal of fiction, and I've forgotten most of what I did read.

I think children love reading, and they will make time for it if we put the right books into their hands. And I hope I get the chance to keep being one of the people that writes them.

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

This is what I believe is most important: getting good books into the hands of kids - books that will make them want to say, 'Wow, that was great. Give me another one to read.'

I wanted my students to leave my classroom loving reading and wanting to read more, and if they left my classroom thinking that reading is boring, then I haven't done my job.

In a sense, there's a great truth to that, but, also I was a great reader.

Schools and parents can team up to find books that kids will really get excited about - that will make them say, 'That was a great experience. Now I know why people get excited about reading.'

It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. The best way for children to treasure reading is to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.

I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning.

The funny thing is, I'm not really a big reader, not a big fan of books in the first place.

I'd like for the young people, and older ones, too, who don't count themselves as readers, to know the joy of reading and what it does to enrich your life in so many ways.

I don't think anything's more rewarding than hearing that you've helped someone gain a love of reading.

We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

If a big person invests time in reading, kids learn reading is important, the child is important, words are important, stories are important.

One of the most memorable things I hear is when someone tells me that my books got a reluctant reader to read.

I think it's so important for young readers to find a book or series that ignites their passion for reading, especially boys, whose interest in reading wanes as they grow older.

I can't actually wrap my mind around it easily - I can't really visualize what 2 million books looks like... So I try to keep it real for myself by focusing on individual anecdotes of how my books have helped kids learn to love reading.

Now, my mom did not read well and she read 'True Romance' magazines, but she read with me. And she would spend 30 minutes a day, her finger going along the page, and I learned to read. Eventually, by the time I was four and a half, she could iron and I could sit there and read the 'True Romance.' And that was wonderful.