Home / Quotes / Quote by Pierre Bayard

Quote by Pierre Bayard

“The paradox of reading is that the path toward ourselves passes through books, but that this must remain a passage. It is a traversal of books that a good reader engages in - a reader who knows that every book is the bearer of part of himself and can give him access to it, if only he has the wisdom not to end his journey there.”

Book:How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

Work

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Pierre Bayard

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Pierre Bayard. more

“When Benjamin Franklin, the famous inventor and publisher, was serving as the American ambassador to France, he often impressed French intellectual with the wisdom of his remarks. At one dinner, the question was raised, "What human condition deserves the most pity?" Each of the guests responded, but the answer that is still remembered is Benjamin Franklins's: "A lonesome man on a rainy day who does not know how to read.”

Reading

Book:How to Make Your Child a Reader for Life

Source: How to Make Your Child a Reader for Life

“The place trembled with sound. I didn't need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid to get in; they had paid for drinks; they intended to get something and if you didn't give it to them they'd run you right into the ocean.”

Poetry Reading Performance

Book:Women

Source: Women

“If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.”

Reading Sex

Book:The Paris Review Book: of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, ... Else in the World Since 1953

Source: The Paris Review Book: of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, ... Else in the World Since 1953

“I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make them important to the people who love them is that there’s always another perspective.”

Life Reading Fiction Tom Perrotta

Author:Tom Perrotta

“I read and reread and recommended and rarely rejected, became one of those readers who will read trashy stories as long as they're not too terrible--well, even perhaps the truly terrible ones--and will reread something she's already read, even if it's something like a detective novel, when you'd suspect that knowing who had really killed the countess would materially detract from the experience. (It doesn't, and besides, I often can't remember who the murderer was in the first place.)”

Reading

Book:Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

Source: Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

“[Los alumnos de Almafitano aprendieron...] Que la principal enseñanza de la literatura era la valentía, una valentía rara, como un pozo de piedra en medio de un paisaje lacustre, una valentía semejante a un torbellino y a un espejo. Que no era más cómodo leer que escribir. Que leyendo se aprendía a dudar y a recordar. Que la memoria era el amor.”

Reading Understanding Literatura Chilena

Book:Los sinsabores del verdadero policía

Source: Los sinsabores del verdadero policía

“I could feel heat pooling between my legs fast and intense. My thighs pressed together, uselessly. Shame surged up my spine, but there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide from what I was feeling. And then I realized my mouth was open. He noticed. A gloved hand reached out slowly, not to harm, but to hush. He touched my chin with surprising gentleness and placed one finger against my lips. “What did you see?” he whispered, his voice low, husky, dangerous and magnetic. “An angel… or something else?”