Inspiration Quotes

"I’m inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man."

- Barack Obama

"You are my angel; you remind me of the goodness in this world and inspire me to be the greatest version of myself."

- Steve Maraboli

"I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed."

- Annie Leibovitz

"Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: They feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship."

- Anne Lamott

"Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time."

- Nick Hornby

"As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul."

- Ursula K. Le Guin

"It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in."

- Naomi Shihab Nye

"Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading."

- Susan Sontag

"Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps."

- Ann Patchett

"Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we’re someone else, disrupting the delusion that we’re permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we’re saved!) other people are real again, and we’re fond of them."

- George Saunders

"Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds."

- Roxane Gay

"We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: We need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever."

- Philip Pullman

"A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on, you are enriched threefold."

- Henry Miller

"Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times? As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells... and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like pressed flower... both strange and familiar."

- Cornelia Funke

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something–a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things–which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours."

- Alan Bennett

"Reading is essential for those who seek to rise about the ordinary."

- Jim Rohn

"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive–all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment."

- Mary Ann Shaffer

"You may have tangible wealth untold; caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be. I had a mother who read to me."

- Strickland Gillian

"Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty.  It should be offered to them as a precious gift."

- Kate DiCamillo

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx

"It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations—something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own."

- Katherine Patterson

"A book is like a garden carried in the pocket."

- Chinese Proverb

"You simply never know what a child is going to find in a book."

- Lucy Mangan

"You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book."

- Dr. Seuss

"Every great achiever is inspired by a great mentor."

- Lailah Gifty Akita

"We all benefit from encouraging words of wisdom."

"She wasn’t born with wings, but she learned to fly anyway."

"Science is cool, art is cool, you are cool. Embrace your passions, whatever they may be."

"Science, sports, art, music – the world is your playground. Explore it all, discover your passion."

"Bird have wings. Humans have books."