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22 Great Quotes About Reading and the Reading Life

Abby Hargreaves

Staff Writer

Abby Hargreaves is a New Hampshire native living and working as a Children’s Librarian in Washington, D.C. She fulfills the gamut of the librarian stereotype with a love of cats, coffee, and crocheting (and likes a good run of alliteration). Her MLIS degree enjoys the company of a BA in English from Hollins University, making Abby an advocate of women's universities. Her favorite color is yellow.

If you’re here, I’m guessing you’re fond of books, the reading life, and especially reading quotes. Maybe you’re a teacher who wants to cover your walls with short quotes about the importance of reading. Or, a reader looking for inspiration for reading quotes to cover your walls in. Out there in the real world, it’s sometimes hard to find others who love reading (after all, we’re all at home, reading and gazing admiringly at our books). If you need a little reminder that there are many of us who love reading and know why it’s so important (and the Book Riot Insiders, these quotes about books, or these bookish words, aren’t enough), here are twenty-two more short quotes about reading and the reading life.

The best reading quotes

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

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. —Dr. Seuss

More You Know Wall Decal

(More You Know Wall Decal from WallumsWallDecals)

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

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. —Abraham Lincoln

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

Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities. —Ben Okri

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading. —Logan Pearsall Smith

Logan Pearsall Smith Reading Quote

(4 Bookish Quote Bookmarks—Set 2 from Whirling World)

Reading—even browsing—an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search. —James Gleick

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. —Ursula K. Le Guin

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. —Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison Reading Quote

(Joseph Addison Reading Quote Print from IDefineMeProject)

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

Reading—the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay. —William Styron

Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere. —Mary Schmich

A book is a dream you hold in your hands. —Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Reading Quote

(A Book Is a Dream… Print by ATArtDigital)

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

Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work. —Khaled Hosseini

We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind. —Anna Quindlen

Reading means borrowing. —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

Harper Lee Reading Quote

(Harper Lee Quote Glass Necklace from GeorgiaTeaberry)

Reading is my favorite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read. —Anne Brontë

Reading is departure and arrival. —Terri Guillemets

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home. —Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen Reading Quote

(Anna Quindlen Reading Quotes Printable from TheBookerie)


What are your favorite reading quotes?