Francis Spufford Quotes

Books have always been important to me - my mom was a first grade teacher, so I grew up reading all the time.

You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

Silence and solitude are more distracting to me than chatter and commotion.

We have met on a solemn occasion, and in this crowded assembly there is one thing that appears important, that is, for every one of us to be still, that if any thing should he said, every one may the better hear.

'Silence,' I think, was the hardest, because it's so different from everything we've done before and required very delicate handling and trying to find the right meditative pace.

For me, I definitely like quiet; I like to write alone.

The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book.

All true readers have a book, a moment when real life is never going to be able to compete with fiction again.

The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.

But the first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.

To hear, one must be silent.

I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

And then, at night, the lit lamp and the drawn curtain, with the flutter of the turned page and soft scrape of pen on paper the only sounds to break the silence between quarter- and quarter-chime.

I began reading Harper Lee's novel in the skimpy shade of a pine outside my grandmother's house, fat beagles pressing against me, begging for attention, ignored. At dark, I kept reading, first on the couch, a bologna sandwich in one hand, then in my bed, by the light of a 60-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling on an orange drop cord. When my mother came in from her job as a maid and unplugged my chandelier, I replayed the story in my head until it was crowded out by dreams. I woke the next morning, smelling biscuits, and reached for the book again.

I think there's too much mult-tasking going on. I think people need to quiet down and focus and be still more.

An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

She took comfort in the soft occasional sound of turning pages.

Being in the library is so addictive for me that I really have to exercise self-control so I can get some writing done at home.

Silence is become his mother tongue.

One can only snort so many ants and have so much sex before one starts to long for the comfort and companionship of a good book.

Because reading is one of the joys of life, and once you begin, you can't stop, and you've got so many stories to look forward to.

If you're trying to find out what's coming next, turn off everything you own that has an OFF switch and listen.

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice -- they won't hear you otherwise -- "I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything: just hope they'll leave you alone.

what I remember is the silence in spite of the noise. In my head it might just as well have been a snowy day in the country.

A little known fact: I read all the time. books were the one thing that got me out of Gatlin, even if it was only for a little while.