Joshua Foer Quotes

I spend 12 hours a day reading on most days of the year.

The average human attention span was 12 seconds in 2000 and 8 seconds in 2013. A drop of 33%. The scary part is that the attention span of a goldfish was 9 seconds, almost 13% more than us humans. That's why it's getting tougher by the day to get people to turn the page. Maybe we writers ought to try writing for goldfish!

I read everything. I've always got a book on the go and I'm really nerdy about it, I get through books and don't remember anything about them afterwards. But I read all sorts, from classic to contemporary.

I'm quite a slow reader. It can take me quite a while to get though a book.

I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers and, generally, persons who move their lips when reading.

Henry Kissinger once told me he was very concerned about the Internet's impact on people's ability to absorb information in a concentrated way, because we've become accustomed to looking up something, getting a snippet and being satisfied with that - as opposed to reading through and considering a weighty tome that goes into great depth.

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don't read anymore.

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.

I'm not well-read, but when I read, I read well.

It takes me forever to read a book. I have such a small attention span.

I'm really not a big rereader - I'm too aware of my own ignorance.

I've read a lot of classic literature from assorted cultures, and always glad to read more when one comes across my path - but why be embarrassed by the fact that flesh and blood has limits? Nobody's read everything.

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 used to read three books a day, sometimes.

It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever. It is also reasonable to assume that practically nothing that is read now will be read later.

We live in a time of short attention spans and long stories. The short attention spans are seen as inevitable, the consequence of living our lives in thrall to flickering streams of information. The long stories are the surprise, as is the persistence of the audience for them.

As a reader, I read quite widely.

I read almost everything that comes my way.

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.

I worry that the superficial way we read during the day is affecting us when we have to read with more in-depth processing.

No one reads anything. They just look at images.

As we continue to become a society of tweets, shorter and shorter messages, there's great value in the contemplation and reflection that comes from reading a long body of work.

When something comes to my mind, I finish a book within 15-20 days.