Quotes about Reading

Unless you read it quickly you will fail to see the unity of the story. Unless you read intensely you will fail to see the details.

Ask questions while you read—questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading.

A good speed reading course should therefore teach you to read at many different speeds, not just one speed that is faster than anything you can manage now. It should enable you to vary your rate of reading in accordance with the nature and complexity of the material.

One reader is better than another in proportion as he is capable of a greater range of activity in reading and exerts more effort. He is better if he demands more of himself and of the text before him.

Concentration is another name for what we have called activity in reading. The good reader reads actively, with concentration.

Whatever approach you take to reading the Bible, don't let yourself become a slave to the method. Don't get so caught up in the mechanics that you miss the point.

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

Therefore beware of the contemplative who says that theology is all straw before he has ever bothered to read any.

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of the long day makes that day happier.

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier. [Allein schon das Wissen, dass einen am Ende eines langen Tages ein gutes Buch erwartet, macht diesen Tag zu einem glücklicheren.]

A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.

But literature is unique. To understand literature, you read it with your head, but you interpret it with your heart. The two are forced to work together—and, quite frankly, they often don't get along.