“Few people actually read. Instead, everyone likes pretending they read. If we spent as much time reading as we say we do, we'd be grossly overweight and depressed.”

“Instead, we'd do what we always did, the only thing we'd ever been dependably stellar at: we'd read.”

“The great opposition to reading is what I allow to fill my time instead of reading. To say we have no time to read is not really true; we simply have chosen to use our time for other things, or have allowed our time to be filled to the exclusion of reading. So don't add reading to your to-do list. Just stop doing the things that keep you from doing it. But read.”

“Remember that there are only three kinds of things anyone need ever do. (1) Things we ought to do (2) Things we've got to do (3) Things we like doing. I say this because some people seem to spend so much of their time doing things for none of these three reasons, things like reading books they don't like because other people read them.”

“Everyone should read, we say, but we act as if only those with special talent should write.”

“We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.”