Critical Reading Quotes

The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger (tutor to Nero) complained that his peers were wasting time and money accumulating too many books, admonishing that "the abundance of books is a distraction." Instead, Seneca recommended focusing on a limited number of good books, to be read thoroughly and repeatedly.

Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.

No book can be so good, as to be profitable when negligently read.

Especially, I think, living in any fantasy or science fiction world means really understanding what you're seeing and reading really densely on a level that a lot of people don't bother to read.

Get informed, not by reading The Huffington Post.

I don't take anything that I read in the newspaper at face value on either side - from anybody.

The people that usually have the most trouble with my books are the ones that pick them apart from a theological point of view.

Reading. That was the sport I was good at.

I pre-suppose, of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself.

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him.

Read the Bible as though it were something entirely unfamiliar, as though it had not been set before you ready-made. Face the book with a new attitude as something new.

I do like people to read the books twice, because I write my novels about ideas which concern me deeply and I think are important, and therefore I want people to take them seriously. And to read it twice of course is taking it seriously.

There is no rigorous and effective deconstruction without the faithful memory of philosophies and literatures, without the respectful and competent reading of texts of the past, as well as singular works of our own time. Deconstruction is also a certain thinking about tradition and context. Mark Taylor evokes this with great clarity in the course of a remarkable introduction. He reconstitutes a set of premises without which no deconstruction could have seen the light of day.

Now, whenever you read any historical document, you always evaluate it in light of the historical context.

Read like a detective and write like a conscientious investigative reporter.

Those who read the Scriptures and judge for themselves, not resting satisfied with the perverted application of the text, do not find the distinction that theology and ecclesiastical authorities have made in the condition of the sexes.

Usually when I read something, first of all I'm looking for the story and then when I reread it, I'm sort of checking every part of it to see if every scene is necessary.

The MFA program did one great thing for me: It taught me how to be a better reader and critic. Nothing I wrote during my time at Columbia remains - but learning how to really deconstruct a work of fiction - that, of course, is a permanent part of me now.

Reading is important - read between the lines. Don't swallow everything.

I hate the idea that you ought to read the whole of anybody.

I became a journalist because I didn't want to have to rely on the press for information... I only read it to make sure of whatever everyone else thinks is going on, because it's useful to know what people think is the news.

No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.

They were like English teachers who took the fun out of a perfectly good book by breaking it down into themes and sentence structures

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties.