Mark Helprin Quotes

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

When I was little, I thought everyone in the world liked to read because it was so fun. But then I realised that was not exactly true. I want other kids to read and write more all over the world, because it helps them to understand things better.

I remember when I was a kid in school and teachers would explain things to me about what I read, and I'd think, Where did they get that? I didn't read that in there. Later you look at it and think, That's kind of an interesting idea.

People who don't read seem to me mysterious. I don't know how they think or learn about other people. Novels are a very important part of our education.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

Comprehension follows perception.

I like to read and understand.

Ultimately all knowing, from the highest to the lowest, is the result of experience; it arises on the way of experiences.

Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.

The more you read, the more things you will know.

I hate books; they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand.

One may receive the information but miss the teaching.

How do you know that?" "Because,"Chong said with raised eyebrows,"when you open those things called 'books',there are words as well as pictures.Sometimes the words tell you stuff.

Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. In the end you will find clues to it all.

One must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.

There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.

Experience by itself teaches nothing... Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning.

To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally.

I'm always loading my brain with new ways of looking at something.

Knowledge is a thing that one cannot have enough of. It is the fruit of wisdom, to be eaten carefully and digested fully, unlike that lunch you are bolting down, little friend.

True knowledge without xperience is food without sustenance

There is a difference between people who are educated and people who are smart.

Whoever will be cured of ignorance, let him confess it.