Next to the Bible, the book I value most is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times. It is a volume of which I never seem to tire; and the secret of its freshness is that it is so largely compiled from the Scriptures.
Keep going; never stop; sit tight; Read something luminous at night.
I have very positive memories of reading biographies of unusual Americans as a child.
Before you sleep, read something that is exquisite, and worth remembering.
More and more I'm finding that I'm reading history, I'm reading biography, I'm reading autobiography for a sense of people who've been able to provide leadership. I don't read leadership books anymore.
For character, to prepare for the inevitable I recommend selections from [Ralph Waldo] Emerson. His writings have done for me far more than all other reading.
I look at every book as a self-help book.
Most people who decide to grow personally find their first mentors in the pages of books.
The most important habit is solitude, quiet time. People who enter their day by taking 45 minutes or an hour for themselves - meditation, prayer, inspirational reading, taking a walk - before they go for it in the real world do best.
A year after One Thousand Gifts had released, Kathie Lee Gifford of the Today Show, named it one of her favorite things - the gift that will radically change your life. She shared the title with PEOPLE magazine as one of favorite books - quite astonishing for an evangelical Christian book.
I loved Gore Vidal's Burr. That book gave me courage.
I started reading the works of Swami Vivekananda. That gave me courage and a vision, it sharpened and deepened my sensitivities and gave me a new perspective and a direction in life. I decided to dedicate myself to others and till date I am continuing to follow that decision.
My father gave me a copy of 'Seven Years in Tibet,' and that's what turned me on to Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.
Reading yields a wish to write, I think, except if the reading is dull and uninspiring.
Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.
Novels may teach us as wholesome a moral as the pulpit. There are "sermons in stones," in healthy books, and "good in everything.
Any book which inspires us to lead a better life is a good book.
There are two books that I often travel with; one is 'The Theory on Moral Sentiments' by Adam Smith. The other is 'The Meditations.' It's not that I agree with either views expressed in the books, but I believe ideas and thoughts of older generations can offer food for thought for the current generation.
Read the Bible and inspirational books for a purpose. Ask for divine guidance. Search for the light.
I would have to say the novel 'War and Peace' influenced me more than any other book. This greatest of novels demonstrated to me the enormous power of literature and fired me up with a desire to become a writer, to participate in what I considered then to be the greatest of all endeavors.
English fiction was something I loved growing up, and it changed my life - it changed the trajectory of my life.
I went through a phase in my 20s when I was overdosing on self-help books, so it was really refreshing to read 'The Alchemist' because it was a novel, but it still had the same wisdom, wasn't patronising and didn't tell you how you should live your life.
Start at once a bedside library and spend the last half hour of the day in communion with the saints of humanity.
I can always tell when I'm about to start writing. I go through cycles in reading. When I'm beginning to start to write something, I start reading what I think of as good literature. I read things with wonderful language.
A great book should leave you with many experiences.
