Zadie Smith Quotes

Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

I wasn't very academically inclined, growing up as a child, and the only subject I was good at was English. I had a flair for it, since I came from a literary background.

One must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.

Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

What I want is to try and get across the idea that reading for pleasure is so beneficial. And turn children on who have maybe been switched off reading or never found a love of it in the first place.

Read much, but not many books.

I hope to instill, in every child I meet, my love and enthusiasm for reading and stories.

We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading well.

When I was little, I thought everyone in the world liked to read because it was so fun. But then I realised that was not exactly true. I want other kids to read and write more all over the world, because it helps them to understand things better.

People who don't read seem to me mysterious. I don't know how they think or learn about other people. Novels are a very important part of our education.

I'm not well read.

To succeed, you will soon learn, as I did, the importance of a solid foundation in the basics of education - literacy, both verbal and numerical, and communication skills.

Read, read, read, read and then read some more.

Reading is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.

Reading and writing is so important, and it's something I am really keen to promote. It's something that can be a bit lost these days with so much else going on.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, because I read and read and read. I read everything.

If I couldn't read, I couldn't live.

There's definitely a value in being literate.

In fourth grade, I learned that reading was serious business, not just a pleasant way to pass the time, and that like medicine or engineering, it had a definite, valuable purpose: to foster 'comprehension.'

I went to college, but I learned to write by reading - and writing.

I come to writing the same way I come to teaching, which is that my goal is always to create life-long readers.

The more one reads, the more one sees that one has to read.

I have not the advantage of a classical education, and no man should, in my judgement, accept a degree he cannot read.

Anyone who doesn't read doesn't have any business writing.