The 60+ Best Quotes About Reading Books

Whether you're an author or a reader (or both), chances are you like sharing your passion for reading with others. And for authorpreneurs, it can be tough to come up with consistent content to share with your fans on social media. That's why we've gathered a list of quotes about reading books that you can share with your readers!

From inspirational to downright funny book quotes, we've got you covered.

Inspirational Reading Quotes

Whether you're sharing your love of reading through a social media site or your in-person book club, these inspirational quotes are great for spreading the joy and magic of reading.

“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds.” – Roxane Gay

“It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.” – John Waters

“What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!” – Thomas Babington Macaulay

“Some books leave us free and some books make us free.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real.” – Nora Ephron

“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri

“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.” – William Styron

“We read to know we are not alone.” – William Nicholson

“Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading.” – Susan Sontag

“Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we’re someone else, disrupting the delusion that we’re permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we’re saved!) other people are real again, and we’re fond of them.” – George Saunders

“Have books ‘happened’ to you? Unless your answer to that question is ‘yes,’ I’m unsure how to talk to you.” – Haruki Murakami

“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while.” – Malorie Blackman

Funny Book Quotes

These funny book quotes will have you laughing out loud and nodding in agreement. Book lovers of all types will get a kick out of these quotes from both unknown and well-known sources.

“I enjoy long, romantic walks . . . through the bookstore.” – Unknown

“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” – Mark Twain

“My problem with reading books is that I get distracted… by other books.” – Unknown

“The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.” – Joseph Joubert

“Reading … changes you. You aren't the same person after you've read a particular book as you were before, and you will read the next book, unless both are Harlequin Romances, in a slightly different way.” – Margaret Atwood

“When a character does something really stupid or embarrassing, I have to close the book and breathe for a second because I can feel their embarrassment.” – Unknown

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” – CS Lewis

“I'm not addicted to reading. I can stop as soon as I finish the next chapter.” – Unknown

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” – Jane Austen

“You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.” – Dr Seuss

“Bookworm problem: Laughing out loud while reading a book in a public place and getting funny looks from the other people.” – Unknown

“Take a good book to bed with you—books do not snore.” – Thea Dorn

“I don’t have insomnia. I just read a lot.” – Unknown

“Sometimes you just need to lay on the couch and read for a couple of years.” – Unknown

“The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.” Oscar Wilde

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” – Henry Ward Beecher

Reading Quotes from Famous Figures

From the author of the Harry Potter series to comedians and famous historical figures, the following quotes can get you pumped to pick up (or write) your next book.

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” – Frederick Douglass

“I guess a big part of serious fiction's purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves.” – David Foster Wallace

“If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.” – Roald Dahl

“If you’re going to binge, literature is definitely the way to do it.” – Oprah Winfrey

“I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.” – CS Lewis

“We never tire of the friendships we form with books.” – Charles Dickens

“I never need to find time to read. When people say to me, ‘Oh, yeah, I love reading. I would love to read, but I just don’t have time,’ I’m thinking, ‘How can you not have time?’ I read when I’m drying my hair. I read in the bath. I read when I’m sitting in the bathroom. Pretty much anywhere I can do the job one-handed, I read.” – JK Rowling

“I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading has opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” – Malcolm X

“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.” – Abraham Lincoln

“I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most.” – Margaret Atwood

“Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading.” – Ernest Hemingway

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.” – Maya Angelou

“To travel far, there is no better ship than a book.” – Emily Dickinson

Reading Is Life Quotes

If you're like me, the power of the written word casts a spell that can't be broken. Any book lover will appreciate these quotes about how reading comes first, and the rest of life second. Who knows? Maybe you'll find your new favorite quote in this section!

“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return. ” – Salman Rushdie

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” -Mark Twain

“You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.” – Paul Sweeney

“People who say that I’m hard to shop for must not know where to buy books.” – Unknown

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” – Neil Gaiman

“My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” – Malcolm X

“You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.” – Dr Seuss

“If only I could manage, without annoyance to my family, to get imprisoned for 10 years, ‘without hard labour,' and with the use of books and writing materials, it would be simply delightful!” – Lewis Carroll

“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” – Bill Patterson

“I do not want to just read books; I want to climb inside them and live there.” – Unknown

“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: We need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.” – Philip Pullman

“Wear the old coat and buy the new book.” – Austin Phelps

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” – Ernest Hemingway

“A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.” – Henry Ward Beecher

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” – Stephen King

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” – Joan Didion

“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.” – Logan Pearsall Smith

Conclusion

The right book can transport you to faraway lands. Whether your favorite book is a fairy tale, an action-thriller, or a steamy romance, there's something to be said about the magic of the written word. Through big and little means, writers help us see the world through different eyes. They teach, inspire, and help us get in touch with feelings we thought were long forgotten. And the best part? Anyone can do it!

Whether you're a full-time author, an aspiring writer, or an avid reader, I hope these quotes can help you share your love of reading with the world. (P.S. For more ready-made content to share with your readers, check out these reading memes!)

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