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When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.


W. Somerset Maugham

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EVANS G. VALENS I was well-read but perhaps that only made me stupid.
RICHARD SMYTH A person, for example, reads in adulthood a book that is important for him, and it makes him say, "H...
ITALO CALVINO That the author is speaking only to us, that he is writing only for us, that no one on Earth has the...
ADAM LANGER I love reading; I really enjoy it. I read books quite fast, which kind of annoys me, but I like it a...
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LEV GROSSMAN I'd only read a bit of the first book. And I just knew about all the media furor over it. But I'd no...
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WILLIAM IVEY LONG The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I re...
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REBECCA MAKKAI My next option is to only write a list of the books I like, but then again, I don’t read a book I ...
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GEORGE GISSING For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people deter...
WALTER LIPPMANN I read over a hundred books a year and have done so since I was fifteen years old, and every book I'...
NICHOLAS SPARKS When a lot of voices, make up a noise, the man who is silent represents a voice.
APURVA GAGLANI There isn't a book that has changed me, but I have favourites such as 'Pride and Prejudice&#...
CAROLINA HERRERA When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.
NORMAN MAILER When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.
ANZIA YEZIERSKA When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.
NORMAN MAILER I'm doing 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'... It was a book I read when I was younger, ...
LOGAN LERMAN It's not like since I make comics I only read comics and since I make movies I will only go out ...
MARJANE SATRAPI Here's my definition of a great beach read - a fabulous story that sucks me in like a black hole...
DOROTHEA BENTON FRANK It had to be a book that held my attention and kept me wanting to read it; when my husband finished ...
RACHEL TUCKER It is good," he thought "to taste for yourself everything you need to know. That worldly pleasures a...
HERMANN HESSE I didn't really like reading much before I did 'The Golden Compass'. But then my teacher...
DAKOTA BLUE RICHARDS I'm very grateful for social media. I think it has shown people my true nature, and through that...
LAURA BENANTI Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a par...
BLACK ELK When I read the Upanishads, which are part of Vedanta, I found a profundity of worldview that made m...
HUSTON SMITH My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it ei...
WILL ROGERS whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn ...
DAVID SEDARIS A truly good book…teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living o...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is now my favourite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another bo...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY It is now my favorite book of all time, but then again, I always think that until I read another boo...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I read less of everything now. With only fond memories of others' work, it will be interesting t...
JONATHAN CARROLL I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my ...
HERMANN HESSE I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems b...
JESSYE NORMAN Then I read the book, 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' and that really got me thinking, ... Until then I hadn't ...
BRAD JARVIS In other words I not only have to read that book, I have to read everything that author wrote.If you...
JOHN IRVING Personally, I am a hedonistic reader; I have never read a book merely because it was ancient. I read...
JORGE LUIS BORGES - I tak nieźle sobie pożyłem.
- Co to za życie? – powiedział ojciec.- Nic tylko kłamstw...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI I used to read five psalms every day - that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chap...
BILLY GRAHAM The last book I read before I wrote my first book - 'Ghosts of Manhattan' - was 'The Gol...
DOUGLAS BRUNT I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight ...
WILL ROGERS I read everything. When I say everything, I read everything: children's literature, Y.A., scienc...
JESMYN WARD I began writing poems when I was about eight, with a heavy assist from my mother. She read me Arthur...
CAROLYN KIZER So, for the most part, I really like when I read a scene that scares me and makes me sweat a little ...
LILY RABE I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight ...
WILL ROGERS Curran's whore comes to visit us," Jarek said in accented English.

The three men laughed ...
ILONA ANDREWS Let me say again that I have not read your book. And one of the reasons I didn't was because I wante...
KEITH BEAUCHAMP I read books for exams at school, but only because I had to read them, and really didn't enjoy i...
RACHEL TUCKER Progress is very good in life,but when our progress becomes a me only affair,it then becomes very ba...
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particuarly long to learn that for yourself. Ther...
NEIL GAIMAN I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belong to you.
SARAH J. MAAS You do what you love, what you need
SARAH J. MAAS You are the blood of the dragon. You can make a hat.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing w...
A.A. MILNE He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain...
SARAH J. MAAS Hodor," said Hodor.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN She made a fence of phrases, which seemed a treachery to herself.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold ...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN The issue isn't whether he loved you, it's how much. Too much. Love can be poison
SARAH J. MAAS I turned.
Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere...
SARAH J. MAAS Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and s...
CARTER CROCKER If we finished our work, the teacher would say, 'Now don't read ahead.' But sometimes I hid the book...
BEVERLY CLEARY Reading has made me more open, has improved my understanding, and has made me a better artiste, but ...
SONAM KAPOOR There was part of me that wanted to see the world and travel to distant places, but I could only do ...
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN People lose it when I say this, but I'm a novelist who doesn't read novels. There are lots o...
KAREN TRAVISS The book of 'The Hobbit' was given to me to read by a friend of my mother when I was about 1...
CONAN STEVENS I was born into a profession in which my love of words, chosen with care for their meaning and nuanc...
FRANCESCO QUINN Bhulaney ke liay bhi tujhy yaad tu kerna hoga,
Magar her yaad se hain wabasta teri hazaar baata...
HUSEYN RAZA History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN When left alone with her, I ignored her and kept my eyes on my book, though I confess I turned over ...
MARY STREET I doubt I was much of a storyteller, but I would have put that smile in my book. On page 104, right ...
NADèGE RICHARDS I knew how to read a contract by 10 years old, but I didn't know what it meant for somebody to c...
COREY FELDMAN Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give ...
ANNE RICE For me, any book I'm writing is also a chance to get in and research and read and learn things t...
TAD WILLIAMS The Bible was the only book he read. He didn't read it often but when he did he wore his mother's gl...
FLANNERY O'CONNOR You turned your head to the side. Faced me. Your eyes never left mine, I read them with ease. You sa...
ALI LAND Often the adult book is not for you, not yet, or will only be for you when you're ready. But sometim...
NEIL GAIMAN I read a book twice as fast as anybody else. First, I read the beginning, and then I read the ending...
GRACIE ALLEN To read my book, the virgin shy - May blush, while Brutus standeth by: But when he's gone, read thro...
MARCUS AURELIUS If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.
EMILY DICKINSON I needed to realise my role in the drama and it was only then that I could learn and be better for i...
TONY CURL

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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.
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The corners of ...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion...
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The crown of literature is poetry.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies a...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to university go on a Government...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are two good things in life -- freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead beca...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He could breathe more freely in a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the things he ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim a...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Why did you look at the sunset?'
Philip answered with his mouth full:
Because I was happy.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it'...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than man...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM This love was a torment, and he resented bitterly the subjugation in which it held him; he was a pri...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM What d'you suppose I care if I'm a gentleman or not? If I were a gentleman I shouldn't waste my time...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and selfcomplacent is err...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined b...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I happen to think we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest id...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You see, money to you means freedom; to me it means bondage.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I used to listen to the monks repeating the Lord's Prayer; I wondered how they could continue to pra...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Its a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, few are chosen.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I do not attach
any exaggerated importance to my poetical works. Life is
there to be lived...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because th...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the
personality of the artist; and if that is ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Unconsciously, perhaps, we treasure the power we have over people by their regard for our opinion of...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM For men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes place among the other affairs of the day, and...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can never know enough about your characters
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He was the most inconsiderable creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM In the first place it's not true that people improve as you know them better: they don't. That's why...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is fooli...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the uni...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made o...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to acc...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepares to take the consequences.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Wives are people who feel they don't dance enough.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the wo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifice...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The average American can get into the kingdom of heaven much more easily than he can get into the Bo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. I...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty o...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for noth...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to th...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I like manual labor. Whenever I've got waterlogged with study, I've taken a spell of it and found it...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It is funny about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will very often get i...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We have long passed the Victorian era, when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a ba...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Tolerance is another word for indifference.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upo...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know th...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He woul...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.
~Wad...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM I know that you're selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven't the nerve of a rabbit,...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is err...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It's a long, arduous road he's starting to travel, but it may be that at the end of it he'll find wh...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM ... I was perturbed by the suspicion that the anguish of love contemned was alloyed in her broken he...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM [Emerson] had a gift of the picturesque phrase, but too often it is empty of meaning. He is a nimble...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM Women are strange little beasts,' he said to Dr. Coutras. 'You can treat them like dogs, you can bea...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she ha...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM