100 Quotes About Reading that will Expand Your Mind

Our latest collection of quotes about reading.

Reading has many incredible benefits and there are many reasons why we should develop a reading habit.

Besides helping you acquire knowledge, reading keeps your brain active and engaged, helps reduce stress, and expands your vocabulary.

In addition, a reading culture will help you develop stronger analytical skills as well as improve your ability to focus and concentrate.

Overall, reading is a great way to develop and grow to a higher level.

Although many people understand the importance of reading, many still struggle to cultivate a better and consistent reading habit.

A practical way to approach it is to first determine your reading goals and have a deep willingness to read and grow in the process.

To help you create a habit of reading regularly, below are some great quotes about reading.

Enjoy!

Also, see these education quotes that will make you appreciate the power of learning and gaining knowledge.

If you like this article, we suggest you explore our most popular quotes article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily encouragement. 

Check out more inspirational quotes on our motivational quotes category page.

Quotes about reading that will expand your mind

1. “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” — Richard Steele

2. “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis

3. “Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” –Mason Cooley

4. “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” ― Oscar Wilde

5. “Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.” ― George R.R. Martin

6. “We read to know we’re not alone.” ― William Nicholson

7. To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” — Victor Hugo

8. “The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.” —Rene Descartes

9. “She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.” ― Annie Dillard

10. “Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers.” ― Steven Spielberg

Quotes about reading and how powerful it is

11. “A book is a gift you can open again and again.” —  Garrison Keillor

12. “You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.” –Paul Sweeney

13. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” ― George R.R. Martin

14. “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” ― Ray Bradbury

15. “A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.” –Neil Gaiman

16. “I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.” ― Orhan Pamuk

17. “Reading brings us unknown friends” ― Honoré de Balzac

18. “Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.” —Ben Okri

19. “Reading—the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.” —William Styron

20. “We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind.” —Anna Quindlen

Quotes about reading to help develop the habit

21. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” —Dr. Seuss

22. “Reading is departure and arrival.” —Terri Guillemets

23. “I feel the need of reading. It is a loss to a man not to have grown up among books.” —Abraham Lincoln

24. “Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.” — Kate DiCamillo

25. “Reading is like breathing in, writing is like breathing out.” – Pam Allyn

26. “An hour spent reading is one stolen from paradise.” – Thomas Wharton

27. “Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” — Mason Cooley

28. “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

29. “It’s one of the greatest gifts that reading can give a person: easy access to peace inside, even when the world outside is in shambles.” – J. W.

30. “If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” ― J.K. Rowling

Reading quotes to remind us of its importance

31. “Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.” –John Green

32. “Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head.” ― Paul Auster

33. “Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.” ― Diane Duane

34. “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” –Frederick Douglas

35. “Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” — Emilie Buchwald

36. Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” — Margaret Fuller

37. “I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.” ― Gary Paulsen

38. “Reading was a joy, a desperately needed escape — I didn’t read to learn, I was reading to read.” ― Christian Bauman

39. “No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.” — Confucius

40. “I am a part of everything that I have read.” – Theodore Roosevelt

You might also like these literature quotes and sayings to share with your favorite bookworm.

Other thoughtful quotes about reading

41. “That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri

42. “No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don’t read is often as important as what you do read.” ― Lemony Snicket

43. “I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” —Jorge Luis Borges

44. “A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.” —Louis L’Amour

Don’t forget to also check out our collection of A Course in Miracles quotes from the iconic book.

45. “One of the greatest gifts adults can give—to their offspring and to their society—is to read to children.” —Carl Sagan

46. “No two persons ever read the same book.” –Edmund Wilson

47. “I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.” – Woodrow Wilson

48. “Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai

49. “Why can’t people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?” ― David Baldacci

50. “Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.” – Mark Haddon

More reading quotes and sayings

51. “Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket

52. “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” – John Green

53. “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde

54. “Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.” – John Green

55. “A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.” – William Styron

You might also like these graduation quotes on success, dreams and your future.

56. “We lose ourselves in what we read, only to return to ourselves, transformed and part of a more expansive world.” – Judith Butler

57. “Generally speaking, books don’t cause much harm. Except when you read them, that is. Then they cause all kinds of problems.” – Pseudonymous Bosch

58. “What is inside books may not all that necessarily be different from what are outside books at all.” – Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

59. “There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself. I don’t really see the difference. We find ourselves through the process of escaping.” – Matt Haig

60. “Read about things that wouldn’t keep you up all night long, weeping and tearing out your hair.” – Lemony Snicket

Don’t forget to also check out these Macbeth quotes about power and ambition.

Quotes about reading for people that refuse to pick up a book

61. “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
— Mark Twain

62. “Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.” – Mortimer Adler

63. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
— Haruki Murakami

64. “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
— Albert Einstein

65. “Reading without thinking will confuse you.Thinking without reading will place you in danger.” – Confucius

66. “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”
— J.D. Salinger

67. “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.” – Charles William Eliot

68. “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” – Groucho Marx

69. “The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading.” – David Bailey

70. “He that loves reading has everything within his reach.” – William Godwin

Quotes about reading that will make you want to own a library

71. “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx

72. “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” – Jane Austen

73. Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.” – Maya Angelou

74. “I never feel lonely if I’ve got a book – they’re like old friends. Even if you’re not reading them over and over again, you know they are there. They sort of tell a story about your journey through life.” – Emilia Fox

75. “When you read about the lives of other people, people of different circumstances or similar circumstances, you are part of their lives for that moment. You inhabit their lives, and you feel what they’re feeling, and that is compassion. If we see that reading does allow us that, we see how absolutely essential reading is.” – Amy Tan

76. There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island…” – Walt Disney

77. “Reading… a vacation for the mind.” – Dave Barry

78. “A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.” – Martin Farquhar Tupper

79. “Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.” – Franz Kafka

80. “To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” – W. Somerset Maugham

Quotes About Reading That Will Make You Grab A Book

81. “Reading is a gift. It’s something you can do almost anytime and anywhere. It can be a tremendous way to learn, relax, and even escape.” ― Richard Carlson

82. “The problem with a life spent reading is you know too much.” ― Josh Lanyon

83. “When you lose yourself in a book the hours grow wings and fly.” ― Chloe Thurlow

84. “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” ― Harry Truman

85. “The world belongs to those who read.” ― Rick Holland

86. “I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else’s story, the delicious ache of the last page.” ― Naomi Shihab Nye

87. “I do not read a book; I hold a conversation with the author.” ― Elbert Hubbard

88. “I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough… the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.” ― John Adams

89. “This week I’ve been reading a lot and doing little work. That’s the way things ought to be. That’s surely the road to success.” ― Anne Frank

90. “I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.” ― Emma Thompson

Quotes About Reading for The Magical Words

91. “We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.” ― Quintilian

92. “Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.” ― Thornton Wilder

93. “What is reading but silent conversation?” ― Walter Savage Landor

94. The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.” ― Mary McLeod Bethune

95. I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.” ― Bill Gates

96. “Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.” ― Francis Bacon

97. “People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.” ― Logan Pearsall Smith

98. “All readers are good readers, when they have the right book.” ― Jeanne Herry

99. “Elegance isn’t solely defined by what you wear. It’s how you carry yourself, how you speak, what you read.” ― Carolina Herrera

100. “A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.” ― Erica Jong

Which are your favorite reading quotes

Reading books has many benefits.

When you develop a reading habit, it helps you learn more about your field, makes you think deeper, helps you sharpen your skills and much more.

No matter what your field or interests might be, it’s important to develop a reading culture.

Hopefully, these quotes have motivated you to remain focused on your reading goals.

Did you enjoy these quotes about reading?

Which of the reading quotes was your favorite?

Tell us in the comment section below.

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