Top 500 Reading Quotes (2023 Update)

1. “Reading can take you places you have never been before.”

— Dr. Seuss

2. “Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world.”

— Jeanette Winterson

3. “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”

— Joseph Addison

4. “Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”

— Lisa See

5. “In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.”

— Anna Quindlen

6. “No time is ever wasted if you have a book along as a companion.”

— Marian Wright Edelman

7. “The keys to life are running and reading.”

— Will Smith

8. “If you’re not reading – with your heart as well as your brain – you will be one stupid grown up. Even worst, you’ll be missing out on one of the best experiences you can possibly have. Nowhere will you meet more interesting people than in books.”

— James Patterson

9. “The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.”

— René Descartes

Also featured in: Book Quotes

10. “Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true.”

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg

11. “Sleep is good, he said, And books are better.”

— George R.R. Martin

Also featured in: Book Quotes, Sleep Quotes, Healing Quotes

12. “Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.”

— Bill Watterson

Also featured in: Rain Quotes

13. “You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.”

— Adrienne Rich

14. “It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.”

— S. I. Hayakawa

15. “A word after a word after a word is power.”

— Margaret Atwood

16. “Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary. We must not permit anything to stand between us and the book that could change our lives.”

— Jim Rohn

Also featured in: Book Quotes

17. “A new book is like a friend that I have yet to meet.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Book Quotes

18. “Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”

— Anna Quindlen

19. “Reading is important. If you know how to read then the whole world opens up to you.”

— Barack Obama

Also featured in: Book Quotes

20. “A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

Also featured in: Book Quotes

21. “I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.”

— Orhan Pamuk

Also featured in: Book Quotes

22. “You see, one of the best things about reading is that you’ll always have something to think about when you’re not reading.”

— James Patterson

23. “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.”

— Dr. Seuss

Also featured in: Book Quotes

24. “Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

Also featured in: Book Quotes

25. “The home is the child’s first school, the parent is the child’s first teacher, and reading is the child’s first subject.”

— Barbara Bush

26. “There’s no such thing as a kid who hates reading. There are kids who love reading, and kids who are reading the wrong books.”

— James Patterson

Also featured in: Hate Quotes

27. “I think it’s the books that you read when you’re young that live with you forever.”

— J.K. Rowling

28. “I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself.”

— Karen Marie Moning

29. “I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

30. “Books showed me there were possibilities in life, that there were actually people like me living in a world I could not only aspire to but attain. Reading gave me hope. For me, it was the open door.”

— Oprah Winfrey

Also featured in: Book Quotes

31. “I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed!”

— Italo Calvino

32. “Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.”

— Abraham Lincoln

33. “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

— Francis Bacon

Also featured in: Teacher Quotes

34. “Why can’t people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?”

— David Baldacci

35. “I’m a very ordinary human being; I just happen to like reading books.”

— Haruki Murakami

Also featured in: Book Quotes

36. “I love books. I like that the moment you open one and sink into it you can escape from the world, into a story that’s way more interesting that yours will ever be.”

— Elizabeth Scott

37. “Let’s be reasonable and add an eighth day to the week that is devoted exclusively to reading.”

— Lena Dunham

38. “A multitude of books distracts the mind.”

— Socrates

Also featured in: Book Quotes

39. “If the literature we are reading does not wake us, why then do we read it? A literary work must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.”

— Franz Kafka

Also featured in: Quotes About Sea

40. “When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”

— Mark Twain

41. “Of all things I liked books best. My father had a large library and whenever I could manage I tried to satisfy my passion for reading.”

— Nikola Tesla

Also featured in: Book Quotes

42. “I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”

— Roald Dahl

Also featured in: Book Quotes, Teaching Quotes

43. “A lamp can only light another lamp when it continues to burn in its own flame.”

— Rabindranath Tagore

44. “Don’t blow off another’s candle for it won’t make yours shine brighter.”

— Jaachynma N.E. Agu

Also featured in: Leadership Quotes, Book Quotes

45. “You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.”

— Dr. Seuss

Also featured in: Book Quotes

46. “I wanted to pull down a book, open it proper, and gobble up page after page.”

— Laurie Halse Anderson

47. “You’re either reading a book or you’re not.”

— Jonathan Franzen

48. “No. I can survive well enough on my own – if given the proper reading material.”

— Sarah J. Maas

49. “You really ought to read more books – you know, those things that look like blocks but come apart on one side.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Also featured in: Book Quotes

50. “Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible.”

— Barack Obama