William H. Gass Quotes

I read a book twice as fast as anybody else. First, I read the beginning, and then I read the ending, and then I start in the middle and read toward whatever end I like best.

He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the more refined art of skipping and skimming.

One trouble with developing speed reading skills is that by the time you realize a book is boring you've already finished it.

Skimming is fine for our emails, but it's not fine for some of the important forms of reading.

I only read the left-hand pages, so I finish books twice as fast.

When I was 13 or 14, I took this speed-reading course. A lot of the things you do in speed reading you shouldn't do to a good author, but I've been reading really fast ever since.

Reading from cover to cover - I'm not a great reader.

Why the brevity? Because I'd rather people read my book twice than only half-way through

Never read a book to the end, nor even in sequence and without skipping.

Reading goes faster if you don't sweat comprehension.

I read a lot, but at the same time I'm not a particularly good or diligent or discriminating reader. I go through maybe close to a thousand or more books a year, but a lot of times I'll only read bits and pieces of any one individual text.

The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows.

Readers may be divided into four classes: 1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. 3) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. 4) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also

…she was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the same — you couldn't just soak it up then squeeze it out again.

In this respect a program is like a poem: you cannot write a poem without writing it. Yet people talk about programming as if it were a production process and measure "programmer productivity" in terms of "number of lines of code produced". In so doing they book that number on the wrong side of the ledger: we should always refer to "the number of lines of code spent".

Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.

Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it. And, Oprah, can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up — some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal.

Will I have to use a dictionary to read your book?" asked Mrs. Dodypol. "It depends," says I, "how much you used the dictionary before you read it.

Any book, which is at all important, should be reread immediately.

I always want everything read in one sitting. If they can't read it in one sitting, you're going to lose the rhythm of it. You're going to lose the shape of it.

You can't expect that, after a poor fellow has written a book, he should also understand it.

The idea of being productive, the idea of producing many books is going to lead you toward you becoming a better and better writer.

The art of reading is the art of adopting the pace the author has set. Some books are fast and some are slow, but no book can be understood if it is taken at the wrong speed.

How do you remember everything from different books when you are still writing the HP series? As obsessive fans will tell you, I do slip up! Several classrooms move floors mysteriously between books and these are the least serious continuity errors! Most of the fansites will point you in the direction of my mistakes. But the essentials remain consistent from book to book because the story has been plotted for a long time and it is clear in my mind.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.