Reading has a special magic. It takes us to places we’ve never been. Books open doors to new worlds and fresh ideas. The best quotes about reading capture this joy. They remind us why we love to turn pages.
Words from favorite authors or unknown scribes can be a quick boost. They inspire, comfort, and teach us. In this article, we gather some of the best quotes about reading. Each one celebrates the simple joy of a good book.
Inspirational Quotes
“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.” – Neil Gaiman
“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” – Mason Cooley
“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” – Ernest Hemingway
“So many books, so little time.” – Frank Zappa
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King
“Between the pages of a book is a lovely place to be.” – Anonymous
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin
“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn
“There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away.” – Emily Dickinson
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and there discovered a whole new world.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafón
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Richard Steele
“A book is a gift you can open again and again.” – Garrison Keillor
“Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life.’” – Helen Exley
“I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.” – J.K. Rowling
“To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.” – Edmund Burke
“Reading brings us unknown friends.” – Honoré de Balzac
“We read to know we are not alone.” – C.S. Lewis
“The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” – Albert Einstein
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” – Oscar Wilde
“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination and the journey. They are home.” – Anna Quindlen
“The world belongs to those who read.” – Rick Holland
“You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.” – Dr. Seuss
“Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.” – E.P. Whipple
“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” – John Locke
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.” – Henry David Thoreau
“To read is to voyage through time.” – Carl Sagan
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
Famous Authors Quotes
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” – Ernest Hemingway
“The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” – Albert Einstein
“So many books, so little time.” – Frank Zappa
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin
“We read to know we are not alone.” – C.S. Lewis
“Books are a narcotic.” – Franz Kafka
“To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it a second time is to meet an old one.” – Chinese Proverb
“Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.” – Mary Schmich
“The world belongs to those who read.” – Rick Holland
“Books wash away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Berthold Auerbach
“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” – Mason Cooley
“Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.” – John Green
“Books are the mirrors of the soul.” – Virginia Woolf
“Reading brings us unknown friends.” – Honoré de Balzac
“You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.” – Dr. Seuss
“The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.” – George Orwell
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” – Mark Twain
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri
“No two persons ever read the same book.” – Edmund Wilson
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Joseph Addison
“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.” – Abraham Lincoln
“I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.” – J.K. Rowling
“Reading means borrowing.” – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“Books allow you to fully explore a topic and immerse yourself in a deeper way than most media today.” – Mark Zuckerberg
“If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” – J.K. Rowling
“Between the pages of a book is a lovely place to be.” – Anonymous
Childrens Literature Quotes
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” - Dr. Seuss
“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.” – C.S. Lewis
“Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.” - Mary Schmich
“Books train your imagination to think big.” – Taylor Swift
“There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.” – Mary Ellen Chase
“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.” - Marcel Proust
“Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.” – Dr. Seuss
“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.” – Neil Gaiman
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” – Victor Hugo
“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” – Emilie Buchwald
“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. Eliot
“One of the greatest gifts adults can give—to their offspring and to their society—is to read to children.” – Carl Sagan
“A book is a gift you can open again and again.” - Garrison Keillor
“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.” – Kate DiCamillo
“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
“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
“You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.” – Dr. Seuss
“Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” – Neil Gaiman
“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” – Malorie Blackman
“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” - Mason Cooley
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King
“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” – Walt Disney
“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket
“Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.” – Pablo Neruda
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” - Frederick Douglass
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Joseph Addison
“A story is a doorway into another world.” – Emily Rodda
“Books are the mirrors of the soul.” – Virginia Woolf
“The whole world opened up to me when I learned to read.” - Mary McLeod Bethune
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
Quotes About Libraries
“A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” – Jorge Luis Borges
“When in doubt, go to the library.” - J.K. Rowling
“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.” – Albert Einstein
“Libraries are the wardrobes of literature.” - George Dyer
“Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination.” - Sidney Sheldon
“A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas.” – Norman Cousins
“Libraries are the thin red line between civilization and barbarism.” – Neil Gaiman
“What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it feels about education.” – Harold Howe
“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.” – Neil Gaiman
“In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us to swim.” – Linton Weeks
“The richest person in the world – in fact all the riches in the world – couldn’t provide you with anything like the endless, incredible loot available at your local library.” – Malcolm Forbes
“When I got my library card, that’s when my life began.” – Rita Mae Brown
“Libraries were full of ideas – perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.” – Sarah J. Maas
“To build up a library is to create a life. It’s never just a random collection of books.” – Carlos María Domínguez
“Libraries always remind me that there are good things in this world.” – Lauren Ward
“The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned.” - Alberto Manguel
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” – Cicero
“Libraries are the vessels of knowledge, set afloat on the sea of time.” – Myra Nevers
“In the library, time is transformed. It is as if the physical world exists to prop up the world of books.” – Jeanette Winterson
“Libraries are sanctuaries for the restless minds.” – Alexander Smith
“Books are the ever-burning lamps of accumulated wisdom, and a library is the room where they shine.” - O. Henry
“Libraries are the havens of the human spirit against the tempest of ignorance.” – Daniel J. Boorstin
“No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.” – Samuel Johnson
“Reading is the path to the library; the library is the gateway to literary enlightenment.” – Michael Komarck
“A great library is one nobody notices because it is always there, and always open, available, and accommodating.” – Stephen Fry
“Libraries are the connective tissue between the past and the future, the place where our stories are preserved.” – Carl Sagan
“Libraries are not dead places but living organisms, infused with the breath of knowledge.” – Salman Rushdie
“A library should be like a pair of open arms.” - Roger Rosenblatt
“Libraries are the last bastion of mystery left.” – James Rollins
“To enter a library is to enter a world of dreams and discovery.” – Manuel Puig
Last Words
Reading quotes remind us of the magic within the pages of a book. They capture the joy, wisdom, and escape that reading offers. When we read these quotes, we feel a connection to those who share our love for books.
Whether you’re a lifelong reader or just starting out, these quotes can inspire you to pick up a book and discover new worlds. So, next time you need a bit of motivation, let these words guide you back to your favorite stories. Happy reading!
