Richard Flanagan Quotes

When I was a teenager, reading for me was as normal, as unremarkable as eating or breathing. Reading gave flight to my imagination and strengthened my understanding of the world, the society I lived in, and myself. More importantly, reading was fun, a way to live more than one life as I immersed myself in each good book I read.

I have never read for entertainment, but rather for understanding and to satisfy my eager curiosity.

I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself.

There is nothing so captivating as new knowledge.

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

The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought.

Yeah, because I think it's more important just to inspire people to wake up one day and pick up a book and start feeling it out for themselves.

To learn something new every day is still exciting!

When I got large enough to go to work, while employed I was reflecting on many things that would present themselves to my imagination; and whenever an opportunity occurred of looking at a book, when the school-children were getting their lessons, I would find many things that the fertility of my own imagination had depicted to me before.

The loneliness you get by the sea is personal and alive. It doesn't subdue you and make you feel abject. It's stimulating loneliness.

I love learning new things that will never be put to practical use.

I bought myself a rubber brain, familiarized myself with its many parts, listened intently, and read more. In fact, I read obsessively, as my husband has told me repeatedly. He has even suggested that my rapacious reading resembles an addiction.

I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.

It is well to be alone. It fertilizes the creative impulse.

I'm no romantic, surfing, California boy. I like reading, writing, philosophizing. Scheming. I've been doing some exploration of the inner space.

Reading has made me more open, has improved my understanding, and has made me a better artiste, but it also makes me live in my own bubble. My mom keeps asking me, 'What do you read in that room the whole day?' Once I am into a book, I will finish it.

I spent many hours ensconced in the local library, reading - nay, devouring - book after book after book. Books were my soul's delight.

I really enjoy when I'm asked questions that leap from the physical world and the material world into our hearts.

I really have lived in books. Books are friends. They are some of the friends that make you who you are.

Always educate yourself.

We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are.

I fell in love with reading when I was allowed to choose whatever books I wanted to check out of the library. I was around nine years old when I began choosing my own books in earnest.

Live to learn, and you will really learn to live.

I subscribe to 'National Geographic,' 'Scientific American,' 'Discover,' and a slew of other magazines. And it is while reading articles for pleasure and interest that an interesting 'What if?' will pop into my head.

I like intellectual journeys.