John Sladek Quotes

When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.

In this 21st century world, some of our country's most significant exports and imports extend beyond goods and services: They also include innovation, knowledge, discovery, and healing.

Reading taught me how to write.

The most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.

If I don't have words, it's a sign I'm not reading enough.

Education happens to be something that all people, all cultures, need to embrace. Math, science, the words of the world. To be able to speak and be able to have clarity and to be able to think. Those are the greatest of gifts.

If I couldn't read, I couldn't live.

What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.

As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete. Even when builders pound nails by the thousand with pneumatic nail guns, every household needs a hammer.

In our high-tech economy, preparation for earning a good living is more readily secured by those who can read, write, speak, and figure well and who have learned how to think critically and reflectively, rather than by those given specialized job training.

the day Johannes Gutenberg finished his wooden printing press in 1440. Western civilization turned onto a path toward more efficient, accessible communication of knowledge.]

Paper is at the center of so many of the elements of the development of civilization.

The public library is where I studied. It's where my grandfather taught himself English.

Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.

Languages are the keys of science.

Literacy is so much entwined in our lives that we often fail to realize that the act of reading is a miracle that is evolving under our fingertips.

I can't imagine not being able to read and write, or make these connections from literature and philosophy that have helped inform my understanding of evolution.

Reading is a bridge to thought.

We live in a world economically, socially, and culturally dependent on science not only functioning well, but being wisely applied.

The important thing is that you 'read!'

A well-run, well-stocked library with access to great books as well as the Internet is essential.

Reading is essential to human life. When the last reader dies, humanity will be at an end.

I have always worried about who can read, who can't, who doesn't, and the great, life-altering consequences hidden within those distinctions.

We humans invented literacy, which means it doesn't come for free with our genes like speech and vision. Every brain has to learn it afresh.

A common language doesn't soothe dry tongues and thirsty throats.