The pleasure of reading
This is the time to be reading and planning to read more.
It bothers me that some people condemn reading as an escape. Of course it is, and what a marvellous escape,what a wonderful way to leave one's present reality and to return refreshed, entertained, challenged and even inspired.
Over the years I have collected a few comments about readuing. Here are a few of them.
QUOTES RE BOOKS AND READING
THE VALUE OF READING!
“Reading a book is like rewriting it for yourself. You bring to anything you read all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.”
Angela Carter, 20th Century
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”
Steele, 18th Century
“If you believe everything you read, better not read.”
Japanese proverb
“I too read in bed. In the long succession of beds in which I spent the nights of my childhood, the combination of bed and book granted me a sort of home which I knew I could go back to, night after night, under whichever skies.”
Alberto Mangerol: A history of reading.
IN PRAISE OF BOOKS -
'Unto my books so good to turn
For end of tired days.'
Emily Dickinson
I love reading books on holidays. I love reading books on ordinary days, not least at the end of tired days.
James Ledingham
'There is no frigate like a book
to take us lands away
Nor any coursers like a page
of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul.'
[Emily Dickinson]
OF BOOKS AND WRITING
“This writing of books is an endless matter” (Knox)
“of making many books there is no end” (RSV)
“the use of books is endless” (N.E.B.)
Whatever Ecclesiastes 12:12 means it certainly draws our attention to books, whether it be the writing, the making or the using of them
OF BOOKS AND READING
What a Christmas present! Margaret gave me the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations, edited by Peter Kemp. This is a wonderful collection, divided into topics and writers.
Here are a few extracts from the section on READING
“I have sought for happiness everywhere, but I have found it nowhere except in a little corner with a little book”.
(Thomas àKempis, 14th century)
POLONIUS: “What do you read, my Lord?”
HAMLET: “Words, words, words.”
(Shakespeare, 16-17th centuries)
“Read in order to live”
(Flaubert, 19th century)
“It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read”.
(Oscar Wilde, 19th century)
Choose an author as you choose a friend.
(Wentworth Dillon, 17th century)
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
[Logan Pearsall Smith]
IN PRAISE OF LITERATURE
Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way.
Salman Rushdie
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once. Cyril Connolly
FROM THE WRITERS’ FESTIVAL
Margaret and I spent an engaging Friday and Saturday at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival recently. With questions about the nature of truth still prominent in my mind, I was struck by some comments by Barry Lopez, and Paul Davies, including
“Most of us know the truth, but we forget. We encounter it in a story and we recognize it.”
“Writers try to create a pattern you enter into and say ‘This feels like the truth to me.’”
Barry Lopez
“A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading…………There are traps everywhere. God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”
C.S. Lewis
In a future blog I will list some ot the books I have been reading in the last year.
It bothers me that some people condemn reading as an escape. Of course it is, and what a marvellous escape,what a wonderful way to leave one's present reality and to return refreshed, entertained, challenged and even inspired.
Over the years I have collected a few comments about readuing. Here are a few of them.
QUOTES RE BOOKS AND READING
THE VALUE OF READING!
“Reading a book is like rewriting it for yourself. You bring to anything you read all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.”
Angela Carter, 20th Century
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”
Steele, 18th Century
“If you believe everything you read, better not read.”
Japanese proverb
“I too read in bed. In the long succession of beds in which I spent the nights of my childhood, the combination of bed and book granted me a sort of home which I knew I could go back to, night after night, under whichever skies.”
Alberto Mangerol: A history of reading.
IN PRAISE OF BOOKS -
'Unto my books so good to turn
For end of tired days.'
Emily Dickinson
I love reading books on holidays. I love reading books on ordinary days, not least at the end of tired days.
James Ledingham
'There is no frigate like a book
to take us lands away
Nor any coursers like a page
of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul.'
[Emily Dickinson]
OF BOOKS AND WRITING
“This writing of books is an endless matter” (Knox)
“of making many books there is no end” (RSV)
“the use of books is endless” (N.E.B.)
Whatever Ecclesiastes 12:12 means it certainly draws our attention to books, whether it be the writing, the making or the using of them
OF BOOKS AND READING
What a Christmas present! Margaret gave me the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations, edited by Peter Kemp. This is a wonderful collection, divided into topics and writers.
Here are a few extracts from the section on READING
“I have sought for happiness everywhere, but I have found it nowhere except in a little corner with a little book”.
(Thomas àKempis, 14th century)
POLONIUS: “What do you read, my Lord?”
HAMLET: “Words, words, words.”
(Shakespeare, 16-17th centuries)
“Read in order to live”
(Flaubert, 19th century)
“It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read”.
(Oscar Wilde, 19th century)
Choose an author as you choose a friend.
(Wentworth Dillon, 17th century)
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
[Logan Pearsall Smith]
IN PRAISE OF LITERATURE
Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way.
Salman Rushdie
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once. Cyril Connolly
FROM THE WRITERS’ FESTIVAL
Margaret and I spent an engaging Friday and Saturday at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival recently. With questions about the nature of truth still prominent in my mind, I was struck by some comments by Barry Lopez, and Paul Davies, including
“Most of us know the truth, but we forget. We encounter it in a story and we recognize it.”
“Writers try to create a pattern you enter into and say ‘This feels like the truth to me.’”
Barry Lopez
“A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading…………There are traps everywhere. God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”
C.S. Lewis
In a future blog I will list some ot the books I have been reading in the last year.
posted by ledingham at 11:15 PM
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