Seth Godin Quotes

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

I find that nowadays it's just gotten harder for me to read for fun. It feels like all of my reading is research-based.

We do not read to pass the time, but to inhabit time.

I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

Men must read for amusement as well as for knowledge.

Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.

The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.

F.R. Leavis's "eat up your broccoli" approach to fiction emphasises this junkfood/wholefood dichotomy. If reading a novel--for theeighteenth century reader, the most frivolous of diversions--did not, by the middle of the twentieth century, make you a better person in some way, then you might as well flush the offending volume down the toilet, which was by far the best place for the undigested excreta of dubious nourishment.

Reading is not an end to itself, but a means to an end.

I don't think we should read for instruction but to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.

Readers may be divided into four classes: 1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. 3) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. 4) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also

The waitress comes over to me like, 'What'chu readin' for?' I had never been asked that. Not 'What am I reading?' but 'What am I reading for?' Goddammit, you stumped me. Hmm, why do I read? I suppose I read for a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being so I don't end up being a... waffle waitress.

Books were my passion and my escape from madness.

Reading without purpose is sauntering not exercise.

Boswell: But, Sir is it not somewhat singular that you should happen to have Cocker's Arithmetic about you on your journey? Dr. Johnson: Why, Sir if you are to have but one book with you upon a journey, let it be a book of science. When you read through a book of entertainment, you know it, and it can do no more for you; but a book of science is inexhaustible.

Who wants to be used? I love to read, so books are my main friends. They're always available, always friendly, and always interesting, and they never make me choose sides.

Some read books only with a view to find fault, while others read only to be taught; the former are like venomous spiders, extracting a poisonous quality, where the latter, like the bees, sip out a sweet and profitable juice.

We’re suggesting that [kids are] missing something if they don’t read but, actually, we’re condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, ‘Take this or you’re going to die.’ We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

I think so much emphasis these days is placed upon achievement and skill and assessment that the joy has gone out of reading for many kids. Students become distracted by struggling to learn to read or by the pressure to achieve.

I read passionately with a need to know and see the act of reading as an act of cognition and not simply a means of passing time.

Reading is very good. And you can quote me!

Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.

The chief aim of education is to show you, after you make a livelihood, how to enjoy living; and you can live longest and best and most rewardingly by attaining and preserving the happiness of learning.

All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be argued, but its release has become a functional necessity.

I prefer to be left alone with my books.