Unread Classics Quotes

'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.

I don't even know how people read new fiction anymore because there's so much old fiction that exists that seems great that's unread. It's overwhelming to me. But, I mean, I do read. But there probably haven't been many people less literate than me that have been in 'The Paris Review.'

'The Man Who Loved Children,' Christina Stead's masterpiece, remains the most fabulous book that hardly anyone I know has read.

I haven't read Ibsen, Shaw, Shakespeare - except 'The Merchant of Venice' in ninth grade. I'm not familiar with 'Death of a Salesman.' I haven't read Tennessee Williams.

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

A "classic" is a book that everybody praises but nobody has read

When you decide to adapt some Russian novel, it's like everyone knows about it but nobody has read it.

I got four volumes of the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell. He is prominent among the great unread, and treated so oddly by history that I wanted to hear his side of things.

There are, I'm depressed to say, many classics I have not yet read and will probably never get around to, though I will not stop short of hospitalizing myself in the attempt.