Mary Gaitskill Quotes

With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.

Reading is as much a part of life as any part, and it's life itself. And it allows us to live other lives that we might not have lived if we hadn't picked up those books.

The great thing about books is that you can end with a question mark.

Books allow you to see the world through the eyes of others.

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library, you could find miracles and truth and you might find something that would make you laugh so hard that you get shushed, in the friendliest way.

The more I read, the more I realise what I don't know.

As a species we are always hungry for new knowledge.

I read a lot of highly unsuitable books for an 11-year-old. I was desperate to read as widely as possible. I thought, 'There are so many places I am never going to get the chance to visit, but I can if I read them.' And I did. I could go anywhere in the world - and off it - by reading.

One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.

There is always a place I can take someone's curiosity and land where they end up enlightened when we're done. That's my challenge as an educator. No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.

I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge.

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

Knowledge is more important than life. We've only one excuse for existing, to think, to find out, to learn.

Read a lot, live your life, and listen and watch, so that your mind fills up with millions of images.

As knowledge increases, wonder deepens.

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

I read many things. I read to fill in my knowledge of the world.

If you read, the world is your oyster. It truly is. Reading makes everything possible.

I read a lot of books. I read because it inspires me and shows me paths that I could never imagine. Sometimes those paths are horrible and sad, and sometimes they are hopeful and amazing. Not always are they paths to the future, and sometimes the paths are actually about the past but make sense when applied to the future. Books are amazing.