Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I think reading a novel is almost next best to having something to do.

I read a lot of heavy literature when I'm on set, so on holiday I want to indulge in something light-hearted.

I like to be with my friends and my family, listen to music and read books. Things like that relax me.

When most people come in from work, 95 percent of them reach for the remote control. Then they read before they go to sleep, to get off to sleep. They do that because reading feels like a duty, and TV feels like fun.

It's easier to sit and watch TV than it is to get up and read a book.

I don't drink alcohol too late in the evening; I read a good book.

I been doing a lot of reading, watching a lot of basketball, watching a lot of shows.

We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind.

To keep an active mind, I find that reading novels is really good.

It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be called into effort: the habit of receiving pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity, and sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual novel-reading.

You can, after all, reduce the reasons for watching TV to but two: to be lulled, and to be stimulated. Some people do one sometimes, the other sometimes. Some people do all of one or all of the other.

When you read, you think, and when you smoke, you think. It's a pleasurable thing, and not a duty.

After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.

When I read, I'm either reading to learn, or I'm reading to switch off.

The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn't matter

You see, one of the best things about reading is that you'll always have something to think about when you're not reading.

If I can get on to my sofa and occupy myself for four hours, at intervals through the day, scribbling my notes, and able to read the books that belong to me, in that they clarify the density, and shape the formless mass within, life seems inconceivably rich.

I spent my entire time reading books and going to the cinema, just to escape.

I just stopped reading a lot of books. I mean, I read books that I have to read for school, but I don't actually pick up a book and read for fun. On my time off, I go to movies, hang out with friends, go shopping...just little things.

My mother read secondarily for information; she sank as a hedonist into novels. She read Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him.

I'd sit at my kitchen table and start scanning help-wanted ads on my laptop, but then a browser tab would blink and I'd get distracted and follow a link to a long magazine article about genetically modified wine grapes. Too long, actually, so I'd add it to my reading list. Then I'd follow another link to a book review. I'd add the review to my reading list, too, then download the first chapter of the book—third in a series about vampire police. Then, help-wanted ads forgotten, I'd retreat to the living room, put my laptop on my belly, and read all day. I had a lot of free time.

I hate leisure, except reading. I'm really a person made to work, if sketching is considered work.

The Only way to do all the things you'd like to do is to read

I try as best I can to really put all I can into what I'm doing. A lot of days I fail and there's too much to do. I do think it's really important to have time to yourself, whether that's reading something interesting when the kids are in bed or even having a dog.

... we must read, not only for what we read but for what it makes us think.