Paula Poundstone Quotes

You're either reading a book or you're not.

Every book is good to read which sets the reader in a working mood.

It got so that when he closed his eyes, letters and words danced in his mind. He thought of little else during that time.

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.

Running a marathon is just like reading a good book. After a while you're just not conscious of the physical act of reading.

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.

I write slowly and get distracted a lot.

Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.

Because I have two houses, I invariably get immersed in a book and then discover it's at the other house.

The abundance of books is distraction

The taste for books was an early one. As a child he was sometimes found at midnight by a page still reading. They took his taper away, and he bred glow-worms to serve his purpose. They took the glow-worms away and he almost burnt the house down with a tinder.

It is a lovely oddity of human nature that a person is more inclined to interrupt two people in conversation than one person alone with a book.

Our house was littered with books- in the kitchen, under the beds, stuck between the couch pillows--far too many for her the ever finish. I suppose I thought if my grandmother kept up her interests, she wouldn't die; she'd have to stay around to finish the books she was so fond of. "I've got to get to the bottom of this one," she'd say, as if a book were no different from a pond or a lake. I thought she'd go on reading forever but it didn't work out that way.

When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first, that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.

I shall die reading; since my book and a grave are so near.

Where do I find the time for not reading so many books?

I will find any excuse to go into somebody's study or ask them what they are reading. I can't think of too many other things that say what goes on in someone's head than the books they have.

How can you read and talk at the same time?” I asked. “Well, I usually can’t, but neither the book nor the conversation is particularly intellectually challenging.

I read differently now, more painstakingly, knowing I am probably revisiting the books I love for the last time. (245)

Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.

I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

The secret of a good librarian is that he never reads anything more of the literature in his charge than the title and the table of contents. Anyone who lets himself go and starts reading a book is lost as a librarian...He's bound to lose perspective.

It doesn't matter if I'm only to be gone four days, as in this case; I take six months' supply of reading material everywhere. Anyone who needs further explication of this eccentricity can find it usefully set out in the first pages of W. Somerset Maugham's story "The Book-Bag.

I like spaghetti because you don't have to take your eyes off the book to pick about among it, it's all the same.