David Levithan Quotes

Many people must have noticed the intense attention given by children to the conversation of grown-ups when they cannot possibly be understanding a word of what they hear. They are trying to get hold of words, and they often demonstrate this fact by repeating joyously some word which they have been able to grasp.

We human beings were never born to read; we invented reading and then had to teach it to every new generation. Each new reader comes to reading with a 'fresh' brain - one that is programmed to speak, see, and think, but not to read.

I find words really hard.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

I think picture books should stretch children. I think they should be full of wonderful, amazing words.

The elementary school must assume as its sublime and most solemn responsibility the task of teaching every child in it to read. Any school that does not accomplish this has failed.

Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

The ability to write and read books is one of the things that transformed us as a species.

No skill shapes a child's future success in school or in life more than the ability to read.

The kids who speak well, are articulate and intelligent, are all readers.

Once we have learned to read, meaning of words can somehow register without consciousness.

Your understanding of what you read and hear is, to a very large degree, determined by your vocabulary, so improve your vocabulary daily.

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.

I'm a big reader. My kids love reading, and I think it's important, not just for development but for bonding. You start reading to kids before they can even understand what you're saying to them, so I look at it as a fundamental tool for connection.

Every book is a children's book if the kid can read!

In fourth grade, I learned that reading was serious business, not just a pleasant way to pass the time, and that like medicine or engineering, it had a definite, valuable purpose: to foster 'comprehension.'

If we were meant to read for enjoyment, would God have created television? Read as it was intended - for exercise. The more you read, the more you expand your - what's the word I'm looking for? - your stockpile of words. You must have a stockpile of words that you can pass along to your children for their stockpile.

I am a slow reader. I always loved words, which is a strange thing given that I couldn't actually read them.

If you are a kid, reading is really important stuff.

The manner in which I learned to read and write, not only had great influence on my own mind, as I acquired it with the most perfect ease, so much so, that I have no recollection whatever of learning the alphabet

I cannot remember not being able to read.

I learnt to read when I was five, and I think that is the most important thing that happened to me.

I know what not being able to read can do to a child's confidence.

I could speak three languages when I was six, and when I went to school, I only liked to read and sketch. At five, I could write and everything.

After many years of research on how the human brain learns to read, I came to an unsettlingly simple conclusion: We humans were never born to read.