Philip Roth Quotes

If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel really.

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.

Readers who claim a preference for short-form over long often tell me it's because they don't have time to commit to a book-length chunk of writing.

When I read, I'm purely a reader.

I think readers are always patient. Look at the 'Harry Potter' series. Some have given up on this generation of kids as game and TV addicts, but lots of people spend lots of time patiently reading through hundreds of pages of dense prose. I think reading a comic by comparison is a lot more immediate.

I do think digital media encourages speed-reading, which can be fine if one is simply seeking information. But a serious novel or work of history or volume of poetry is an experience one should savor, take time over.

When we read about reading, we get to share an experience that is usually kept private. Incisive descriptions of reading help us to understand what is going on when our eyes move across words on the page.

In the past few years I've assigned books to be read before a student attends one of my weeklong seminars. I have been astonished by how few people -- people who supposedly want to write -- read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them.

It's a very powerful, emotional thing to read a book, and to reduce it to a series of questions in a test strips something away from the book.

I've found that writers who don't read really can't write.

As a reader since very early, I have found myself drawn to rants.

I really liked English literature, a subject I did really well at.

Focused reading is so important, and I'm just as guilty as everyone. I have to force myself to slow down, often printing things out or using print as a medium for things that are most important or for things whose beauty would be lost if I use other modes of reading.

I stay up on current events. I read 'The New Yorker' and 'The Economist.' I go to community meetings to see what concerns the people in my neighborhood. I studied literature in college, so I also continue to read poetry, literature, and novels.

Kids are not going to sit and read a slow-paced book. Neither are adults.

I love English and literature.

I used to just sit down and read the dictionary, and I read the Bible and Shakespeare from cover to cover.

My twenties were entirely taken up with literature. Entirely.

We're not just writers; we're readers probably more than anything else. That's how you learn how to write and how you learn to appreciate good writing: by reading.

As a reader, I read quite widely.

I don't have time to read books. I've read my share of books throughout my life, and I will continue to do so.

If you word-spot James Joyce, you'll miss the entire experience.

I try to get through a book every two weeks.

In reading, we are both scientists and poets.

I used to read three books a day, sometimes.