Quotes About Reading

Reading is a great experience. It is easy, affordable and can take place nearly anywhere. Reading taps into your imagination and allows you to experience life from viewpoint of others. It is a great way to pass the time when you are traveling or stuck in a waiting room.

Library of Congress Main Reading Room
Photo: LOC


Here are some wonderful quotes about the experience of reading that we have collected.

"That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet." - Jhumpa Lahiri

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go." - I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! by Dr. Seuss.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one." - George R.R. Martin. He also added to his World Book Day tweet, "or dies a thousand deaths.."

"A book is a dream that you hold in your hand." - Neil Gaiman.


Reading is a great way to escape from life as this poster from the 1930s suggests. It was created by the WPA Federal Art Project. You can see a larger version here.

Vacation Reading Club
Image: LOC


"I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book." - J.K. Rowling

"There is no frigate like a book, to take us lands away." - Emily Dickinson

"Books are a uniquely portable magic." - Stephen King

"Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you." - Louis L'Amour

"Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends." - Helen Keller

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." - C.S. Lewis

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one." - Terry Pratchett

"I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of library." - Jorge Luis Borges

"There is no friend as loyal as a book." - Ernest Hemingway

"We read to know we're not alone." - William Nicholson

"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you don't like to read, you haven't found the right book." - J.K. Rowling

"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them." - Lemony Snicket

"Reading forces you to be quiet in a world that no longer makes place for that." - John Green

"When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began." - Rita Mae Brown


*Note: The image above is thee Main Reading Room at The Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building. You can see a larger version of the image here.