Reading Quotes - Page 36

• If a poem is written well, it was written with the poet's voice and for a voice. Reading a poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument.

  Robert Pinsky

  Voice, Differences, Poet

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• Oh how swiftly the glory of the world passes away! If only the lives of these men had been as admirable as their learning, their study and reading would have been to good purpose! But how many in this world care little for the service of God, and perish in their vain learning. Because they choose to be great rather than humble, they perish in their own conceit.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Humble, Men, Passing Away

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• Be not so set upon poetry, as to be always poring on the passionate and measured pages. Let not what should be sauce, rather than food for you, engross all your application. Beware of a boundless and sickly appetite for the reading of poems which the nation now swarms withal; and let not the Circaen cup intoxicate you. But especially preserve the chastity of your soul from the dangers you may incur, by a conversation with muses no better than harlots.

  Cotton Mather

  Soul, Cups, Passionate

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• Do not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.

  A. E. Housman

  Book, Needs, Way

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• 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.

  John Quincy Adams

  Morning, Years, Practice

  John Quincy Adams (1970). “The Russian memoirs of John Quincy Adams: his diary from 1809-1814”, Arno Pr

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• The truth is we're all probably more creative than we realize, except we spend our lives watching TV or reading somebody else's book. We never pick up a brush and stand in front of our own easel.

  Adam Carolla

  Book, Creative, Tvs

  "‘How Dare You!’: Q&A with Adam Carolla". Interview with Joshua Kors, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 9, 2010.

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• Society has definitely gotten to the point where everybody has to comment on anything, and if you want to stay sane as a performer, you're better off not reading that stuff.

  Doug Benson

  Want, Stuff, Comment

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• In the case of Anathem, most of the research had to do with philosophy and metaphysics. Reading this sort of thing has never been my strong suit, so I actually had to be somewhat more "organized and results-driven" than is my habit. I just made up my mind that I was going to have to read some of these philosophy tomes, and I forced myself to read something like 10 pages a day until I had bashed my way through them.

  Neal Stephenson

  Strong, Philosophy, Mind

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• As an actor, you're always reading scripts looking for something good.

  Kevin Nealon

  Actors, Scripts

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• 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.

  David Hockney

  Powerful, Confused, Thinking

  Interview with Michael Govan, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 5, 2013.

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• It drives me crazy to do readings of my books, because if I read anything I've written in the past, I'd like to almost rewrite everything. If I could, I'd completely rewrite Fargo Rock City, and every sentence would be just slightly different. In all likelihood, most of them wouldn't be any better. Some of them would just be changed back to whatever form they used to be, before I second-guessed myself the first time.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Crazy, Book, Past

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. November 15, 2006.

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• People are more interested in reading bombastic ideas, whether they're positive or negative. Part of me has sort of lost interest in doing criticism because of that. I've always realized that criticism is basically autobiography. Obviously in my criticism, it's very clear that it's autobiography, but I think it's that way for everybody.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Thinking, Ideas, People

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. November 15, 2006.

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• Religion is just an alternate way of reading reality - you read material reality, and then you add on an extra layer of religiosity that deepens that understanding of reality. Some countries have lost that capacity, or dismissed it or marginalized it.

  Yann Martel

  Country, Reality, Understanding

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I never really took a proper art class in college. I just started reading art magazines and going to galleries.

  Larry Gagosian

  Art, College, Class

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• My dream was to eventually make movies. To be part of the fairy tales, stories and novels I loved reading so much growing up.

  Irena A. Hoffman

  Dream, Growing Up, Stories

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• Reading any piece of writing aloud is an acid test, particularly when it comes to dialogue. There were writers I'd always admired who suddenly rang false when I spoke their words in our living room.

  Anne Tyler

  Writing, Acid, Pieces

  Source: www.barnesandnoble.com

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• Some people can't learn to play the guitar by reading a book. You have to actually try to manage a bit and you won't do well at first.

  Keith Rabois

  Book, Guitar, Play

  Source: genius.com

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• You don't have to care about children to care about children. One of the things that I talk a lot about is the fact of the importance of third-grade reading level. By the end of third grade, if the child is not at reading level, it'll drop off. They never catch up.

  Kamala Harris

  Children, Levels, Care

  "The Lenny Interview: Kamala Harris, the Senate Hopeful, Going After Revenge Porn". Interview with Doreen St. Félix, www.elle.com. October 23, 2015.

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• I had been reading about [John] Calvin for years and had been studying the English Renaissance for many more years, and it had never occurred to me to think of them together. I learned that Calvin was the most widely read writer in England in Shakespeare's lifetime. He was translated and published in many editions.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Thinking, Years, Together

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• I actually don't have any fear of people reading Wild and going out unprepared. Because one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I went out unprepared. And when you really think about it, all I did wrong was that I took too much stuff, which is the most common backpacker mistake. The part that I wasn't prepared for is the part you can't prepare for.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Mistake, Thinking, People

  "'Wild’s' Cheryl Strayed Becomes One With Reese Witherspoon". Interview with Maddie Oatman, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2014.

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• When you start reading nonfiction books about piracy, you realize that it's actually just a history of desperate people.

  Daniel Handler

  Book, People, Nonfiction

  "Lemony Snicket Walks the Plank". Interview with Maddie Oatman, www.motherjones.com. January, 2015.

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• A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

  Bernard Malamud

  Surprise, Worth Reading

  Bernard Malamud, Lawrence M. Lasher (1991). “Conversations with Bernard Malamud”, p.34, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• It is not how many books thou hast, but how good; careful reading profiteth, while that which is full of variety delighteth.

  Seneca the Younger

  Book, Careful, Variety

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• It's not a love of poetry readings that attracts those who do come to them but theater.

  A. R. Ammons

  Poetry Reading, Theater

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• There weren't too many books by women that were taught in school, so I read those on my own, and the books I read were as accessible as the ones we were reading in school.

  Jane Smiley

  Book, School, Taught

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