A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.

Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.

We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Reading is seeing by proxy.

Every book is a failure, but some books are useful failures.

Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.

The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, an apostle is hardly likely to look out.

Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.

Reading is an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.

Books are a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.

The best books are those that tell you what you know already.

Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while.

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.