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Reading Quotes

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Reading Quotes

“About a year ago I got really exhausted from reading bad scripts and I know that I am a writer and that I have stories to tell, so I thought, 'Let's do this!' So I'm co-writing a screenplay now with another screenwriter and loving it. Absolutely loving it. And I would like to be the producer on the project and of course the lead is me.”

Knows Writing Years Stories Courses Reading Projects Years Ago Scripts Producers Exhausted Screenplays Screenwriters

Author:Kerry Washington

“Of course, you always think about how it will be read. I always aim for a reading in one sitting.”

Thinking Courses Reading Sitting Aim

Author:Joan Didion

“I have always believed in the magic of childhood and think that if you get your life right that magic should never end. I feel that if adults cannot enjoy a children’s book properly there is something wrong with either the book or the adult reading it. This of course, is just a smart way of saying I don't want to grow up.”

Ifs Thinking Way Want Feels Should Children Book Ends Courses Reading Grows Enjoy Growing Up Magic Childhood Smart Adults Always Believe Children's Books Magic Of Childhood

Author:Colin Thompson

“Both reading and writing are experiences--lifelong-- in the course of which we who encounter words used in certain ways are persuaded by them to be brought mind and heart within the presence, the power, of the imagination.”

Way Writing Mind Heart Used Certain Courses Reading Imagination Encounters Heart And Mind Lifelong Reading And Writing

Book:Three papers on fiction

Source: Three papers on fiction

“I am not fully informed of the practices at Harvard, but there is one from which we shall certainly vary, although it has been copied, I believe, by nearly every college and academy in the United States. That is, the holding the students all to one prescribed course of reading, and disallowing exclusive application to those branches only which are to qualify them for the particular vocations to which they are destined. We shall, on the contrary, allow them uncontrolled choice in the lectures they shall choose to attend, and require elementary qualification only, and sufficient age.”

Source: Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts

“What an artist does, is fail. Any reading of the literature, (I mean the literature of artistic creation), however summary, will persuade you instantly that the paradigmatic artistic experience is that of failure. The actualization fails to meet, equal, the intuition. There is something "out there" which cannot be brought "here". This is standard. I don't mean bad artists, I mean good artists. There is no such thing as a "successful artist" (except, of course, in worldly terms).”

“The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble.”

Source: Up the Down Staircase

“Among those today who believe that modern poetry must do without rhyme or metre, there is an assumption that the alternative to free verse is a crash course in villanelles, sestinas and other such fixed forms. But most... are rare in English poetry. Few poets have written a villanelle worth reading, or indeed regret not having done so.”

Believe Done Today Form Courses Reading Written Modern Poet Regret Alternatives Fixed Assumption Verses Crash Rhyme Worth Reading Free Verse Modern Poetry English Poetry

Author:James Fenton

“Whether or not this story has a happy ending depends, of course, on who is reading it. Whether you are a wolf or a girl.”

Stories Girl Courses Reading Depends Happy Endings

Book:Pretty Monsters

Source: Pretty Monsters

“It is in general true that in order to create works of art one has to have leisure. On the other hand I think that one needs to experience resistance in a practical sense, and even that which is poignant to bring out what makes easy reading for others. Too much deprivation of course, means death.”

Thinking Needs Mean Art Hands Artist Order Courses Reading Easy Too Much Practicals Resistance Works Of Art Leisure Deprivation Poignant

Book:The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore

Source: The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore

“I remember my fourth grade teacher reading 'Charlotte's Web' and 'Stuart Little' to us - both, of course, by E. B. White. His stories were genuinely funny, thought provoking and full of irony and charm. He didn't condescend to his readers, which was why I liked his books, and why I wasn't a big reader of other children's' books.”

“I wasnt a model schoolboy. Of course, I was forced to sit through Shakespeare and I really got into some of it, though it depended on who was reading it out.”

Courses Reading Models

Author:Rufus Sewell

“What I like most: Reading well-written sources that take me to another world for hours at a time - and being able to call that work! Also, of course, finding a gem of information that is either exactly what I was looking for, or else fits perfectly into the story in some way.”

World Way Wells Stories Able Courses Reading Hours Written Information Source Fit Findings Take Me Another World Gems Well Written

Author:Linda Sue Park

“We Americans are mildly interested, of course, in reading about the discovery of radium by Madame Curie, but what we really yearn to know is the name of the uncommemorated French female who first mixed a sauce bearnaise.”

Knows Firsts Courses Reading Names Discovery Female Sauce Madame Curie

Author:Frank Crowninshield

“In the course of a life devoted less to living than to reading, I have verified many times that literary intentions and theories are nothing more than stimuli and that the final work usually ignores or even contradicts them.”

Courses Reading Literature Theory Intention Finals Devoted Stimulus

Author:Jorge Luis Borges

“There is no rigorous and effective deconstruction without the faithful memory of philosophies and literatures, without the respectful and competent reading of texts of the past, as well as singular works of our own time. Deconstruction is also a certain thinking about tradition and context. Mark Taylor evokes this with great clarity in the course of a remarkable introduction. He reconstitutes a set of premises without which no deconstruction could have seen the light of day.”

“The time-use studies also show that employed women spend as much time as nonworking women in direct interactions with their children. Employed mothers spend as much time as those at home reading to and playing with their young children, although they do not, of course, spend as much time simply in the same room or house with the children.”

Children Use Shows Home Young Mother Courses Reading House Rooms Study Direct Interaction Employed Young Children

Author:Sandra Scarr

“It's an incredible education [for the movie J. Edgar Hoover] . It was like I did a college course on J. Edgar Hoover but not knowing and understanding the history and reading the books, but understanding what motivated this man was the most fascinating part of the research.”

Men Book Courses Reading Understanding Knowing College Research Incredibles Fascinating Motivated Not Knowing Hoover J Edgar Hoover Knowing And Understanding College Courses

Author:Dustin Lance Black

“It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one's adult enjoyment of what are called 'children's books.' I think the convention a silly one. 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-except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all. A mature palate will probably not much care for crème de menthe: but it ought still to enjoy bread and butter and honey.”

Source: Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories

“When you wrote it didn't matter if hysteria sometimes came up in your face and voice (unless, of course, you let it find its way into your "literary voice") because writing was done in merciful privacy and silence. Even if you were partly out of your mind it might turn out to be all right: you could try for control even harder than Blanche Dubois was said to have tried, and with luck you could still bring off a sense of order and sanity on the page for the reader. Reading, after all, was a thing done in privacy and silence too.”

Source: Young Hearts Crying

“Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well.”

Ifs Writing Believe Wells Hands Young Courses Reading Practice Democracy Reader Literacy Hand In Hand Reading And Writing

Author:Margaret Atwood

“I am attracted to fantastic writing, and fantastic reading, of course. But I think things that we call fantastic may be real, in the sense of being real symbols.”

Thinking Writing May Real Courses Reading Symbols Fantastic Being Real

Book:Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations

Source: Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations

“If someone does learn about the world from reading a novel of mine, that makes me very happy. It's probably not what brings me into the novel in the first place - I usually am pulled in by some big question about the world and human nature that I'm not going to resolve in the course of the novel. But I'm very devoted to getting my facts straight.”

Ifs World Firsts Humans Doe Facts Bigs Courses Reading Novel Human Nature Mines Resolve Devoted Very Happy Big Questions

Author:Barbara Kingsolver

“Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company-I mean hell.”

Source: John Adams: a biography in his own words

“I took a course in speed reading. Then I got Reader's Digest on microfilm. By the time I got the machine set up, I was done.”

Done Courses Reading Reader Machines Speed Speed Reading Reader's Digest

Author:Steven Wright

“I once said to someone when I was playing Lady Macbeth and they said: "That's tricky, emotionally, what do you do about murdering your husband's cousin?" And there are, of course, things that aren't in your personal repertoire that you have to somehow understand by reading or watching other things and listening to other people talk about them.”

People Said Courses Reading Listening Husband They Said Cousin Tricky Your Husband Listening To Others Lady Macbeth

Author:Judi Dench

“I have made it a practice for several years to read the Bible through in the course of every year. I usually devote to this reading the first hour after I rise every morning. As, including the Apocrypha, it contains about fourteen hundred chapters, and as I meet with occasional interruptions, when this reading is for single days, and sometimes for weeks, or even months, suspended, my rule is to read five chapters every morning, which leaves an allowance of about one-forth of the time for such interruptions.”

Source: The Russian memoirs of John Quincy Adams: his diary from 1809-1814

“I think the ambiguity of similarity and difference is very powerful. It's the same scene in different times of year read across the grid, and, of course, different locations reading vertically. But you can get confused and lost in the series. You force the mind, which is always comparing and contrasting, to stumble ... That ambiguity is very powerful. One is getting lost and refinding oneself.”

“I can't be reading novels when I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. The hardest thing to do is keep the tone and your attitude over the course of a year or however long it takes.But when I'm writing short stories, which I will be doing shortly, I can read anything I like.”

“Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?...Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening...Would you plug in?”

Source: Anarchy, state, and utopia

“The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder... What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection.”

People Way Book Soul Spiritual Courses Reading Holy Perfection Harm Worldly Holy Books Spiritual Reading

Author:Pio of Pietrelcina

“I prefer reading to writing. Reading changes your world view. Writing changes absolutely nothing. Except, of course, when it makes you rich.”

World Writing Courses Reading Views Rich Absolutely Nothing World View

Author:Michel Houellebecq

“I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, these spiritual repasts-a grace before Milton-a grace before Shakespeare-a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading The Fairie Queene?”

Source: Essays of Elia. Rosamund Gray. Recollections of Chirst's hospital. Essays on the tragedies of Shakspeare [etc.] Letters under assumed signatures published in the Reflector. Curious fragments. Mr. H

“Of course we all know people who aren't cut out for college, but I know it's a mistake to think of education only as a route to a better career. Reading books, studying history - all these things contribute to making us better citizens, too.”

People Thinking Knows Book Courses Reading Mistake Careers Study Cutting College Citizens Reading Books Routes Studying History

Author:Rebecca Mead

“My environmentalism reared its head around the age of ten when I inexplicably become obsessed with littering. For some reason I considered it my personal responsibility to pick up litter wherever I found it and yell at anyone I saw contributing to the problem (much to the horror of my mother). I was a ten-year-old on a mission to clean up the streets! But it was years later when I became a mother myself that concern for my kids' future really ignited my passion and set me on my course. Once I started reading and educating myself, there was no turning back.”