Robert Hass Quotes

We're in a strange situation where people either don't read at all or they read a lot. There's a huge gap in between. That's something that would be good to bridge so it doesn't have to be one thing or the other. Books could be part of life in a more relaxed way. I'd like to see that.

An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only.

People who read are not too lazy to turn on the television; they prefer books.

I got interested in the question of literacy because writers are always moaning about why more people don't read books. They long for the good old days when people read serious novels.

If people don't read, that's their choice; a lifelong book habit may itself be some sort of affliction.

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.

The fact that we don't read more books in America can be traced squarely to the fact that we have newspapers that are about a hundred times as big as the newspapers anywhere else.

You can buy a book new, buy it in hardback or wait for the paperback, find it used or as a collectible. I don't mind. What I care about most is that people are reading.

Of all the nations in the Western world, the United States, with the most money and the most time, has the fewest readers of books per capita. This is an incalculable loss. This, too, is one of the few civilized nations in the world which is unable to support a single magazine devoted solely to books.

Reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

My ultimate goal is to drive people back to the books, when I think of an adaptation.

I think I write in order to discover on my shelf a new book that I would enjoy reading, or to see a new play that would engross me.

That you can go anywhere in America and get a book from a library is just the most amazing thing in the world. It's not a duty; it's a privilege and it's a joy. That joy is doubled and tripled and quadrupled if you read with other people.

I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. Censors only read a book with great difficulty, moving their lips as they puzzle out each syllable, when someone tells them that the book is unfit to read.

People read every thing nowadays, except books.

Some people are widely read. I'm thinly read.

And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!

I really try to understand what people are saying and answer as honestly as I can. But sometimes it's like they try to tie you into knots. That's why I mostly steer clear of the popular press. I try not to read . . . Well, I never read gossip press. I just read books. And I never switch on the TV any more.

We never had books in the house. Not any book in our house. Not a Bible, not anything. So, I would go the library from a very young age and get the books out.

For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day.

Many adults, whether consciously or unconsciously, find it beneath their adult dignity to do anything as childish as read a book, think a thought, or get an idea. Adults are rarely embarrased at having forgotten what little algebra or geography they once learned

Most people don't realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn't value its librarians doesn't value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?

You only had widespread literacy and books that people could afford in the middle of the 19th century. Did more people read poetry at the turn of the 20th century when there were about fifty million people?

Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning.