Betty Smith Quotes

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.

With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands.

The doors of the world are opened to people who can read.

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

I don't know if I can say exactly what I seek in books, but one of them would be to deepen and expand my understanding of the world.

If you read, the world is your oyster. It truly is. Reading makes everything possible.

You will learn most things by looking, but reading gives understanding. Reading will make you free.

to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292

Reading is important. If you know how to read then the whole world opens up to you

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

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

If you can't read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!

Read in order to live.

Knowledge is that possession that no misfortune can destroy, no authority can revoke, and no enemy can control. This makes knowledge the greatest of all freedoms.

Reading is as much a part of life as any part, and it's life itself. And it allows us to live other lives that we might not have lived if we hadn't picked up those books.

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems... It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the unsolved ones.

Every time a bookseller hands a child a book, they are doing something that is the heart and soul of the American dream and the American ideal. It's a very sacred tradition.

From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.

Frederick Douglas taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.

Knowledge is power but only wisdom is liberty.

We find little in a book but what we put there. But in great books, the mind finds room to put many things.

The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes and hearts to the world beyond our front doors, that is one of our best hopes against tyranny, xenophobia, hopelessness, despair, anarchy, and ignorance.

One should never underestimate the power of books.

When books are opened, we discover that we have wings