Extensive Reading Quotes

You know what I find most shocking about the Vel'd'Hiv?" Guillaume said. "Its code name."
I knew the answer to that, thanks to my extensive reading.
Operation Spring Breeze, " I murmured. ~ Tatiana De Rosnay

All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading. Mr. Darcy ~ Jane Austen

A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages; she must be well trained in the fighting styles of the Kyoto masters and the modern tactics and weaponry of Europe. And besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved. All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading, meditation, and Oriental discipline. ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading. ~ Jane Austen

The decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly
attributed to the extensive reading of so-called 'science fiction' by our
young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God's making,
societies of 'aliens' without a good Christian among them, and raw sex
between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of
reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will
of God. ~ Jerry Falwell

In an extensive reading of recent books by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and inspirationalists, I have discovered that they all suffer from one or more of these expression-complexes: italicizing, capitalizing, exclamation-pointing, multiple-interrogating, and itemizing. These are all forms of what the psychos themselves would call, if they faced their condition frankly, Rhetorical-Over-Compensation. ~ James Thurber

I don't think I'm an exceptionally bad reader. I suspect that many people, maybe even most, are like me. We read and read and read,
and we forget and forget and forget. So why do we bother? Michel de Montaigne expressed the dilemma of extensive reading in the
sixteenth century: "I leaf through books, I do not study them," he wrote. "What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.
It is only the material from which my judgment has profited, and the thoughts and ideas with which it has become imbued;
the author, the place, the words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget." He goes on to explain how "to compensate a
little for the treachery and weakness of my memory," he adopted the habit of writing in the back of every book a short critical
judgment, so as to have at least some general idea of what the tome was about and what he thought of it. ~ Joshua Foer

At any rate, during the few hours when the depressive state itself eased off long enough to permit the luxury of concentration, I had recently filled this vacuum with fairly extensive reading and I had absorbed many fascinating and troubling facts ~ William Styron

As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next. ~ Ibn Warraq

Normally I don't approve of children staying up late,' he said finally, 'unless they are reading a very good book, seeing a wonderful movie, or attending a dinner party with fascinating guests. ~ Lemony Snicket

Readers are bullied in schoolyards and in locker-rooms as much as in government offices and prisons. ~ Alberto Manguel

If men were to be destroyed and the books they have written were to be transmitted to a new race of creatures, in a new world, what kind of record would be found in them of so remarkable a phenomenon as the rainbow? ~ Henry David Thoreau

The amount of excitement when you say hi will be paid back when you say bye! ~ S.E. Sever

Today a pitcher gets fined if the umpire thinks he threw at a batter. In the olden days, the umpire didn't have to take any courses in mind reading. The pitcher told you he was going to throw at you. ~ Leo Durocher

The spoon is a reader's friend, scooping from the plate almost by itself. The fork requires more attention. ~ Erri De Luca

A library is where ideas sleep between covers, waiting for you to discover them. ~ Lois Ehlert

A great book is one, which really don't finish when it finishes. ~ Aman Jassal

We have to teach empathy as we do literacy. ~ Bill Drayton

That part of what I loved about poetry was how the distinction between fiction and nonfiction didn't obtain, how the correspondence between text and world was less important than the intensities of the poem itself, what possibilities of feeling were opened up in the present tense of reading. ~ Ben Lerner

It was the fangirl code for every book geek: read, chat, squeal. Re-read, chat, and squeal again, until it's all over and the dreaded book funk sets in. Find the next best thing to fill the void, then repeat steps one through three as necessary. ~ Rachael Wade

I don't think my writing has much to do with my age. For me, my biography is more about what I was reading at what age. It's more of an intellectual thing of wanting to be free to write and think without being too bound by categorisation. I don't think I'm made for these times; I feel more like an old-fashioned writer. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. ~ Mary Shelley

Books and movies, they are not mere entertainment. They sustain me and help me cope with my real life. ~ Arlaina Tibensky

The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions-there we have none. ~ Virginia Woolf

You'll discover a whole world in reading books. ~ Kenneth E. Stuart

Reading is of course dry work, and further refreshment was called for and consumed. ~ Diana Gabaldon

will you be the one reading the book or writing the book ~ Abe

Chloe thought madly about tiny FM radios that she could hide in her ear and pull her hair over to hide, about getting very badly drunk or stoned, about getting one of the loopier Wiccans at school to put her into a trance before the reading. Anything that could get her through it with her sanity intact and a straight face. ~ Celia Thomson

That's what I used to enjoy so much: Bringing a record home, having it arrive in the mailbox. Having the whole experience of hearing it as you're holding it and looking at it and reading the liner notes, if they're anything. ~ John Darnielle

I care about reading, a lot. It's a big part of my life. ~ Josh Radnor

When you assume you make a you-know-what out of U and me. Yep, so let's stop assuming so much. We are often quick to explain details to strangers, who we understand might not be reading our minds, but we often assume that those people closest to us, those who share our household such as spouses, children parents and siblings, can read our minds. And we get upset with them when they don't go figure.
I wonder how many angry words are directed not at an action or inaction as would at first appear, but simply at the fact that somebody did not read our minds.
So let's give those people we care most about the benefit of the doubt and do a little less assuming and a little more explaining. ~ David Leonhardt

They say she was once a grand lady and lived on the hill. But she took to reading books and went from bad to worse. Stuffed her head full of ideas, and now she's a bit addled. ~ Helen Deutsch

Applicants must also have extensive knowledge of Unix, although they should have sufficiently good programming taste to not consider this an achievement. ~ Hal Abelson

I just know from experience that reading a funny poem aloud, especially at the beginning of a public reading, can have a certain effect. Somehow narrowing the spectrum of possible emotional reactions. So while I like it when people laugh at my poems, and I definitely enjoy being funny in them, I don't really think that's the most important thing that's going on, at least not to me. ~ Matthew Zapruder

These days, the teenage years are considered a time for socializing with a focus on dating and popularity. When relieved of the pressures of dating too young, I believe a young person is better able to focus on who they really are and find themselves in that crucial time when your personality is beginning to germinate. It's all that time reading, dreaming, and goofing off with fellow oddballs where our best selves get to evolve as teenagers. ~ Rainn Wilson

I know people who read interminably, book after book, from page to page, and yet I
should not call them 'well-read people'. Of course they 'know' an immense amount; but
their brain seems incapable of assorting and classifying the material which they have
gathered from books. They have not the faculty of distinguishing between what is
useful and useless in a book; so that they may retain the former in their minds and if
possible skip over the latter while reading it, if that be not possible, then--when once
read--throw it overboard as useless ballast. Reading is not an end in itself, but a means
to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made
up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses. Thus each one procures
for himself the implements and materials necessary for the fulfilment of his calling in
life, no matter whether this be the elementary task of earning one's daily bread or a
calling that responds to higher human aspirations. Such is the first purpose of reading.
And the second purpose is to give a general knowledge of the world in which we live.
In both cases, however, the material which one has acquired through reading must not
be stored up in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the successive chapters of the
book; but each little piece of knowledge thus gained must be treated as if it were a little
stone to be inserted into a ~ Adolf Hitler

I'd hate to read all these books ... that much reading could put your eyes out. ~ Larry McMurtry

Thank God for books, for validating your feelings, and letting you know you're not alone. ~ Paula Gruben

Reading is the staff of life! ~ Roger Bonner

Do not suppose, however, that those first principles [faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost] are the only ones to be learned; do not become stereotyped in your feelings, and think that you must always dwell upon them and proceed no further. If there be knowledge concerning the future; if there be knowledge concerning the present; if there be knowledge concerning ages that are past, any species of knowledge that would be beneficial to the mind of man, let us seek for it, and that which we cannot obtain by using the light which God has placed within us, by using our reasoning powers, by reading books, or by human wisdom alone, let us seek to a higher source - to that Being who is filled with knowledge. ~ Orson Pratt

From a really young age, I was reading like a writer. I was reading for the deep understanding of the literature; not simply to hear the story but to understand how the author got the story on the page. ~ Jacqueline Woodson

You can be anywhere you want in the world, meet different people and learn more than a hundred things in a matter of minutes… all you have to do is READ! ~ C.M. Okonkwo

I prefer the skyline
of a shelf of books. ~ Jim Harrison

In attunement, it is the infant who leads and the mother who follows. "Where their roles differ is in the timing of their responses," writes John Bowlby, one of the century's great psychiatric researchers. The infant initiates the interaction or withdraws from it according to his own rhythms, Bowlby found, while the "mother regulates her behaviour so that it meshes with his... Thus she lets him call the tune and by a skillful interweaving of her own responses with his creates a dialogue."

The tense or depressed mothering adult will not be able to accompany the infant into relaxed, happy spaces. He may also not fully pick up signs of the infant's emotional distress, or may not be able to respond to them as effectively as he would wish. The ADD child's difficulty reading social cues likely originates from her relationship cues not being read by the nurturing adult, who was distracted by stress. In the attunement interaction, not only does the mother follow the child, but she also permits the child to temporarily interrupt contact.

When the interaction reaches a certain stage of intensity for the infant, he will look away to avoid an uncomfortably high level of arousal. Another interaction will then begin. A mother who is anxious may react with alarm when the infant breaks off contact, may try to stimulate him, to draw him back into the interaction. Then the infant's nervous system is not allowed to "cool down," and the attunement relationship is hampered ~ Gabor Mate

Every time we went to kourt the judge made a point of reading into the record that i had refused to stand up for him. He was one of those racist white dogs who really believed he was massa. ~ Assata Shakur