Reading without purpose is sauntering not exercise.
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.
Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
Of course there is no denying the possible pleasure of holing up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; still, we all know that we can indulge ourselves in that fashion only so much. In the end, we read not for reading's sake, but to learn.
The waitress comes over to me like, 'What'chu readin' for?' I had never been asked that. Not 'What am I reading?' but 'What am I reading for?' Goddammit, you stumped me. Hmm, why do I read? I suppose I read for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being so I don't end up being a... waffle waitress.
Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.
We are the worst of fools if we do not teach every child to become truly expert, deep readers.
I feel like the books that I'm reading at any given time will really help me with my work, because it's just more characters, and you see new people while you're reading.
People never explain to you exactly what they think and feel and how their thoughts and feelings work, do they? They don't have time. Or the right words. But that's what books do. It's as though your daily life is a film in the cinema. It can be fun, looking at those pictures. But if you want to know what lies behind the flat screen you have to read a book. That explains it all.
