John Irving Quotes

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 allow you to see the world through the eyes of others.

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.

Writing isn't necessarily about what one knows but what one wants to know.

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

My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library, you could find miracles and truth and you might find something that would make you laugh so hard that you get shushed, in the friendliest way.

The more I read, the more I realise what I don't know.

Books were the window from which I looked out of a rather meager and decidedly narrow room onto a rich and wonderful universe. I loved the look and feel of books, even the smell... Libraries were treasure houses. I always entered them with a slight thrill of disbelief that all their endless riches were mine for the borrowing.

There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.

Reading has been the fuel of my motivation: it has changed the direction in which I have traveled, and it has enhanced my creative imagination more than any other activity I have ever pursued.

For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.

Write about what you want to know.

Practice being curious; want to know things; ask questions.

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.

Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.

Read a lot, live your life, and listen and watch, so that your mind fills up with millions of images.

I read many things. I read to fill in my knowledge of the world.

There are always things that you want to know more about.

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.

We’re not the nation’s jailers. We are not out there to punish. We are out there to learn.

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

Every single day, I'm curious about everything. Curiosity is finding answers to things.

I always want to know about things.

I read a lot of books. I read because it inspires me and shows me paths that I could never imagine. Sometimes those paths are horrible and sad, and sometimes they are hopeful and amazing. Not always are they paths to the future, and sometimes the paths are actually about the past but make sense when applied to the future. Books are amazing.