Reading Community Quotes

There were a lot of things I loved about working in a library, but mostly I miss the library patrons. I love books, but books are everywhere. Library patrons are as various and oddball and democratic as library books.

I read actual books. It's cool to read on a Kindle if that's what you want to do, but for me, I like having a bookshelf.

I love book clubs. I just hate reading and talking to people.

I hate that bookstores are closing. Hate it! What's better than hanging out a bookstore, be it independent or chain, and talking books with people who love books?

It's a novel experience to have one of my books read by a reading group.

Books make great gifts because they're something you love that you can share.

Here's the thing: Authors live or die by recommendations. [That's one of the reason I review so many books on Goodreads.] Giving books you love good reviews is one of the nicest things you can do for an author. What's more it's good for the entire community.

There is no shortage of wonderful writers. What we lack is a dependable mass of readers.

That's one of the many things about having the bookstore that I adore. I can walk into the store and say to somebody, "I'm glad you're reading this book" or "I'm glad you're getting this book" or "Don't get that book. I read that book and hated that book. Let's get you this book instead."

My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.

I get a lot of mail from boys in detention centers, including one from a center where they only had a few copies of my novel. They had a deal with each other that they'd read a couple of chapters and then slide it under the door to the next guy. I think that's very cool.

Always, always, always pass a good book along on to somebody else.

I'd like to thank readers. Every time you open a book, it is a strike against ignorance. Unless you're reading Sarah Palin.

You walk into BookCon, and everybody is so excited... it's just paradise.

Being a writer can be isolating. It's good to be among readers and booksellers.

I get wonderful letters from kids and teachers. I must have the best readers in the world.

I want to remind people of the great and profound joy that can be found in stories, and that stories can connect us to each other, and that reading together changes everybody involved.

I remember one letter from a girl in a midwestern town who read one of my books and thought she had discovered it- that no one had ever read it or knew about it. Then one day in her local library she found cards for one or two of my other books. They were full of names- the books were borrowed all the time. She resented this a bit and then walked around the town looking in everybody's face and wondering if they were the ones who were reading my books. That is someone I write for.

Writing is solitary, so I love going out once in a while and meeting my readers. I'll often hang with them after a signing for some beers. They're invariably bright!

You need books to read and readers for books.

Whenever I'm reading a book I enjoy, I always develop a mental list of the people I want to share it with.

My Kindle readers have been incredibly faithful fans.

E-books present the greatest opportunity readers have ever had to find each other. It's a chance for stories written for paper to find new life and a chance for new stories to appear, freed from the constraints of paper publishing.

Those of us who know the transporting wonder of a reading life know that it little matters where we are when we talk about books or meet authors or bemoan the state of publishing because when we read, we are always inside, sheltered in that interior room, that clean, well-lighted, timeless place that is the written word.

A book is always a dialogue with other readers and other books.