Reading Strategy 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.

If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

Don't read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.

Say I lived until 80 and read a book a month seriously, that means I was looking at 480 books left in my life. If I had only 480 left, I wanted to stop sifting through material I didn't have confidence in and turn my attention to those that I know merited my reading.

Read much, but not many works.

Over the years, I've evolved a somewhat heretical but time-and mind-saving approach to books, articles, editorials that deal with weighty matters. More often than not, by beginning at the end and contemplating the conclusions, one can determine if it's worth going through the whole to get there.

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.

When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first, that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.

There is an enormous redundancy in every well-written book. With a well-written book I only read the right-hand page and allow my mind to work on the left-hand page. With a poorly written book I read every word.

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

Aquinas was once asked, with what compendium a man might become learned? He answered "By reading of one book.

I only read the left-hand pages, so I finish books twice as fast.

Of course, you always think about how it will be read. I always aim for a reading in one sitting.

Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and reread them…digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be ‘much not many.

I always take a fiction break in between business books to keep the content from bleeding together.

Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.

I learnt that I must never finish a book with nothing else to do.

Reading goes faster if you don't sweat comprehension.

A man who attempts to read all the new productions must do as the flea does,--skip.

Listen you have to read a book three times before you know it.

I'm trying to start reading books that you gain knowledge from in order to challenge myself more. As a rule, I tend to read easy reading/populist-type books, but I don't feel like I'm learning enough.

I like to read the ending first.

If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible, But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud.

I always save a huge book for a flight, because then you read it at both airports and on the plane and by the time you get home you're a quarter of the way through and it doesn't feel so unmanageable any more.

If you read one hour per day in your field, that will translate into about one book per week. One book per week translates into about 50 books per year. 50 books per year will translate into about 500 books over the next ten years.