100+ Inspiring Quotes to Ignite Your Passion for Reading

"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 made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time—proof that humans can work magic."

- Carl Sagan

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."

- Frederick Douglass

"When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young."

- Maya Angelou

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader."

- Margaret Fuller

"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time."

- Carl Sagan

"Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Books are a uniquely portable magic."

- Stephen King

"If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book."

- J.K. Rowling

"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 and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world."

- Jeanette Winterson

"We read to know we are not alone."

- C.S. Lewis

"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

"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

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."

- René Descartes

"That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet."

- Jhumpa Lahiri

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

- Malorie Blackman

"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

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive."

- James Baldwin

"Reading is important. If you know how to read, then the whole world opens up to you."

- Barack Obama

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one."

- George R.R. Martin

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

- Joyce Carol Oates

"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

"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope."

- Kofi Annan

"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his needs, is good for him."

- Maya Angelou

"There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book."

- Frank Serafini

"One of the greatest gifts adults can give—to their offspring and to their society—is to read to children."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Neil Gaiman

"Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light."

- Vera Nazarian

"There is no substitute for books in the life of a child."

- May Ellen Chase

"When you learn to read you will be born again…and you will never be quite so alone again."

- Rumer Godden

"So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky."

- William James

"The greatest gift is a passion for reading."

- Elizabeth Hardwick

"Fairy tales in childhood are stepping stones throughout life, leading the way through trouble and trial. The value of fairy tales lies not in a brief literary escape from reality, but in the gift of hope that goodness truly is more powerful than evil and that even the darkest reality can lead to a Happily Ever After. Do not take that gift of hope lightly. It has the power to conquer despair in the midst of sorrow, to light the darkness in the valleys of life, to whisper “One more time” in the face of failure. Hope is what gives life to dreams, making the fairy tale the reality."

- L.R. Knost

"Read. Everything you can get your hands on. Read until words become your friends. Then when you need to find one, they will jump into your mind, waving their hands for you to pick them. And you can select whichever you like, just like a captain choosing a stickball team."

- Karen Witemeyer

"A house without books is like a room without windows."

- Heinrich Mann

"A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever."

- Louis L'Amour

"Reading is important, because if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything."

- Tomie dePaola

"It is books that are the key to the wide world; if you can’t do anything else, read all that you can."

- Jane Hamilton

"A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read."

- Mark Twain

"Reading is still the main way I both learn new things and test my understanding."

- Bill Gates

"It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish."

- S.I. Hayakawa

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

- Jim Rohn

"Reading can teach you the best of what others already know. Reflection can teach you the best of what only you can know."

- James Clear

"The paradox of reading: The books you read will profoundly change you even though you’ll forget the vast majority of what you read."

- David Perell

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."

- George R.R. Martin

"The purpose of reading is not just raw knowledge. It’s that it is part of the human experience. It helps you find meaning, understand yourself, and make your life better."

- Ryan Holiday

"Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had."

- E.B. White

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."

- Jorge Luis Borges

"Reading an hour a day is only 4% of your day. But that 4% will put you in the top of your field within 10 years. Find the time."

- Patrick Bet David

"When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it."

- Julian Barnes

"Books are the training weights of the mind."

- Epictetus

"The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them."

- Mark Twain

"The leader who intends to grow spiritually and intellectually must be reading constantly."

- J. Oswald Sanders

"Your mind will give back to you exactly what you put into it."

- John Maxwell

"I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp."

- J.K. Rowling

"Live as if you would die tomorrow; learn as if you will live forever."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know."

- Alberto Manguel

"Reading speed is nothing more than signaling. Skim broadly to find something worth reading. Then dive in slowly and deeply. It’s not how fast you read but what you absorb that matters."

- Shane Parrish

"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."

- John Locke

"The great thing about reading is that it broadens your life."

- George R.R. Martin

"You are what you read."

- Alex Wieckowski

"Books are more likely to change minds than conversations."

- James Clear

"One sign you haven’t done enough reading is if you find yourself agreeing with whatever book you read last. At first, it’s easy to be swayed by any reasonable argument. Once you’ve read a lot, you can see that even the best arguments have limitations."

- James Clear

"In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you."

- Mortimer J. Adler

"I have lived a thousand lives and I’ve loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time. Because I read."

- George R.R. Martin

"If we read merely to stock our head with ideas, to feel superior to others, or to appear learned, then our reading is useless and vain."

- J. Oswald Sanders

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."

- Toni Morrison

"To function in a knowledge economy, most organizations need people who read."

- David Allen

"Material wealth starts with mental wealth. Build a better mind, get a better life."

- Orange Book

"Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier."

- Kathleen Norris

"All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen."

- Roald Dahl

"If you’re overthinking, write. If you’re underthinking, read."

- Alex Wieckowski

"Read to collect the dots, write to connect them."

- David Perell

"He that loves reading has everything within his reach."

- William Godwin

"Read books that are relevant to what you want to achieve and reading will never seem boring."

- James Clear

"Wear the old coat and buy the new book."

- Austin Phelps

"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

"Some books leave us free and some books make us free."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A word after a word after a word is power."

- Margaret Atwood

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live."

- Joan Didion

"There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book."

- Marcel Proust

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."

- Anna Quindlen

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."

- Emilie Buchwald

"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, read, read."

- William Faulkner

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

- Kate DiCamillo

"Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from one generation to the next. Books save lives."

- Laurie Anderson

"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

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

- Cicero

"Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time."

- E.P. Whipple

"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

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading."

- William Styron

"Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real."

- Nora Ephron

"Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere."

- Jean Rhys

"That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Books may well be the only true magic."

- Alice Hoffman

"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life."

- W. Somerset Maugham

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."

- Richard Steele

"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe."

- Madeleine L'Engle

"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 books... are those that tell you what you know already."

- George Orwell

"Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one's own self."

- Franz Kafka

"Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head."

- Paul Auster

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labelled 'This could change your life.'"

- Helen Exley

"There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things."

- Jeffrey Eugenides

"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book."

- John Green

"There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all."

- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

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

- Jim Rohn

"The story is truly finished–and meaning is made–not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters."

- Celeste Ng

"One must always be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us."

- Cassandra Clare

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

- Charles W. Eliot

"Once you've read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you."

- Louis L'Amour

"The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us."

- Ray Bradbury

"Books are mirrors: You only see in them what you already have inside you."

- Carlos Ruiz Zafón

"Think before you speak. Read before you think."

- Fran Lebowitz

"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

"I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book."

- Benedict Cumberbatch

"Comics are a gateway drug to literacy."

- Art Spiegelman

"I don't read a book; I hold a conversation with the author."

- Elbert Hubbard

"Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again."

- Louisa May Alcott

"A book is a gift you can open again and again."

- Garrison Keillor

"Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly."

- Francis Bacon

"There is a wonder in reading Braille that the sighted will never know: to touch words and have them touch you back."

- Jim Fiebig

"Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work."

- Khaled Hosseini

"Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let's not forget this."

- Dave Eggers

"Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?"

- Christopher Paolini

"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

"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark."

- Victor Hugo

"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors."

- Charles Baudelaire

"If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads."

- François Mauriac

"I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them."

- Emma Thompson

"There is no friend as loyal as a book."

- Ernest Hemingway

"Let us read and let us dance—two amusements that will never do any harm to the world."

- Voltaire

"Reading a book is among the most high-leverage activities on earth."

- Greg McKeown

"Read what you love until you love to read."

- Naval Ravikant

"A recipe for getting more out of what you read: start more books. Quit most of them. Read the great ones twice."

- James Clear

"Unless our reading includes serious thinking it is wasted time."

- J. Oswald Sanders

"The books that make you feel dumb are often the ones that make you smarter."

- Alex Wieckowski

"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond."

- C.S. Lewis

"Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home."

- Anna Quindlen

"I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else."

- Neil Gaiman

"Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this."

- Dave Eggers

"There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books."

- Irving Stone

"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

- Neil Gaiman

"Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back."

- John Green

"I cannot live without books."

- Thomas Jefferson

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."

- Jane Austen

"Books are the mirrors of the soul."

- Virginia Woolf

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."

- Harper Lee

"The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries."

- René Descartes

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

- C.S. Lewis

"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I guess there are never enough books."

- John Steinbeck

"But for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short."

- Jane Austen

"For my whole life, my favorite activity was reading. It’s not the most social pastime."

- Audrey Hepburn

"Books are an investment, not an expense."

- Alex Wieckowski

"I can survive well enough on my own – if given the proper reading material."

- Sarah J. Maas

"If a book is well written, I always find it too short."

- Jane Austen

"Literature is my Utopia."

- Helen Keller

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island."

- Walt Disney

"Reading is not a race, it’s a lifestyle."

- Meet Shah

"Reading only one book is like eating only one potato chip."

- Diane Duane

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

- Oscar Wilde

"It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else."

- John Waters

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

- Groucho Marx

"Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading."

- Lena Dunham

"A lot of people ask me if I were shipwrecked and could only have one book, what would it be? I always say, “How to Build a Boat.”"

- Steven Wright

"The smarter you get, the slower you read."

- Naval Ravikant

"Sleep is good, and books are better."

- George R.R. Martin

"If they wrote it to make money, don’t read it."

- Naval Ravikant

"Much reading can be done through otherwise wasted minutes."

- J. Oswald Sanders

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

- Lemony Snicket

"A child who reads will be an adult who thinks."

- Sasha Salmina

"to suit me."

- C.S.Lewis

"Books break your heart and then put it back together again, but better than it was before."