Desiderius Erasmus Quotes

It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.

Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.

I grew up in a bookish family, so I read very widely. I was omnivorous, really.

Read much, but not many books.

I don't even know how people read new fiction anymore because there's so much old fiction that exists that seems great that's unread. It's overwhelming to me. But, I mean, I do read. But there probably haven't been many people less literate than me that have been in 'The Paris Review.'

Literature is capable of being a subject that people want to catch up on or discuss, whether at a coffee shop or a watercooler. It can become an intrinsic part of their dialogue.

He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.

A surprising number of people - including many students of literature - will tell you they haven't really lived in a book since they were children. Sadly, being taught literature often destroys the life of the books.

I was forever reading outside of the field as well as in it.

I've been an inveterate reader of literary magazines since I was a teenager. There are always discoveries. You're sitting in your easy chair, reading; you realize you've read a story or a group of poems four times, and you know, Yes, I want to go farther with this writer.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

The novel is about, for me, sustained and organized looking. I do think that people have a hunger for a sustained engagement, that concentration that the book can offer.

I always individuate myself from other writers who say they would die if they couldn't write. For me, I'd die if I couldn't read.

I read and enjoy just about anything I can get my hands on.

Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable.

I suppose people might consider me a 'loose' reader, as I seem willing to read anything of quality thinking and prose.

As a bookish adolescent, I sopped up texts as if I were blotting paper and they were fluid.

That helped me to keep in touch with myself and to keep in touch with this really quite extraordinary language and literature into which I had pushed a little way.

I think that's not a question that one can answer accurately. I read a whole range of books, quite a lot of history at the time, and still do read a lot. I read very widely.

I have spent more time with other people's books than with my own. I do not regret it.

Couldn't imagine any other way of living, outside of books, outside my work. Which doesn't mean I am not interested in other things, of course - I am interested in many things. But the center, the crux, is always literature.

Whatever I read went under my skin. I almost devoured the literature, which became like a road to discovery.

I want to be super well-rounded.

I don't necessarily want a higher education, I want a wider education. I want to know everything and experience everything.

My twenties were entirely taken up with literature. Entirely.