“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, A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all of the miseries of life.
W. Somerset Maugham
“I think ideas are one of the things I do well,” says Susan Anderson-Newham, 2013 Mover & Shaker, block-play advocate, actor, writer, storyteller and, most importantly, the Pierce County Library System’s (WA) early learning supervising librarian. In this interview, Anderson-Newman talks about the importance of collaboration and a good sense of humor, why hands-on play is key to kids’ learning, her inspirations and passions, and her top picture books of all time.
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. Eli
So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
-Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.
–Vera Nazarian
“Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”
Ezra Pound
Life transforming ideas have always come to me through books.
Oliver Wendall Holmes
If the act of rereading a book is partly about remembering the you who paged through it the first time, and comparing that version of yourself to the one dipping into that book again, the classics that we read in high school offer endless possibilities for rediscovery, for looking at ourselves then and now. That's part of what makes Kevin Smokler's new book, Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven't Touched Since High School, so much fun. His homages to 50 titles, including Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, The Bluest Eye, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and even The Scarlet Letter (he writes, "I don't like it either," but argues for rereading it nonetheless), offers a truly enjoyable trip down one's personal memory lane of books. It's also a love letter to the act of reading, to continual learning, and to making an effort to slow down and savor the good books in life.
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
~ William Hazlitt