Books for Living

What are you reading? isn’t a simple question when asked with genuine curiosity; it’s really a way of asking, Who are you now and who are you becoming?

Reading and naps, two of life's greatest pleasures, go especially well together.

Good books often answer questions you didn't even know you wanted to ask

Books have played a role in almost every one of the world's great civil and human rights movements, but only because people who read them decided to act. Reading brings with it responsibility.

Books speak to us thoughtfully, one at a time. They demand our attention. And they demand that we briefly put aside our own beliefs and prejudices and listen to someone else's. There's one questions I think we should ask one another a lot more often, and that's "what are you reading?

I'm not the same reader when I finish a book as I was when I started, brains are tangles of pathways, and reading creates new ones. Every book changes your life. So I like to ask; How is this book changing mine?

Lin Yutang also believed that reading is an art. One chapter of the Importance of Living is devoted to "the Art of Reading." Lin writes that, "the man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine; he is limited to contact and conversation with a few friends and acquaintances, and he sees only what happens in his immediate neighborhood.

I used to say that the greatest gift you could ever give anyone is a book. But I don't say that anymore because I no longer think it's true. I now say that a book is the second greatest gift. I've come to believe that the greatest gift you can give people is to take the time to talk with them about a book you've shared. A book is a great gift; the gift of your interest and attention is even greater.

As for me, I'm on a search and have been, I now realize, all my life - to find books to help me make sense of the world, to help me become a better person, to help me get my head around the big questions that I have and answer some of the small ones while I'm at it.

I read to live. I read for life.

And reading all different kinds of books is not simply reading all different kinds of books; it’s a way of becoming more fully human and more humane.

Reading is a respite from the restlessness of technology, but it's not only that. It's how I reset and recharge. It's how I escape, but it's also how I engage. And reading should spur further engagement.

His point: you don’t have to travel the world to see the ways we mistreat one another; it’s as close as the street outside our windows.

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,” said Jojen. “The man who never reads lives only one.” —GEORGE R. R. MARTIN,

There's one question I think we should ask of one another a lot more often, and that's "What are you reading?" It's a simple question but a powerful one, and it can change lives, creating a shared universe for people who are otherwise separated by culture and age and by time and space. . . . When we ask one another "What are you reading?" sometimes we discover the ways that we are similar; sometimes the ways that we are different. Sometimes we discover things we never knew we shared; other times we open ourselves up to exploring new worlds and ideas. "What are you reading?" isn't a simple question when asked with genuine curiosity; it's really a way of asking, "Who are you now and who are you becoming?

I become influenced while I'm reading. I'm not the same reader when I finish a book as I was when I started. Brains are tangles of pathways, and reading creates new ones. Every book changes your life.

Trust is all about instinct. If you had all the facts, you wouldn't need trust. Trust is what is required in the absence of proof. But I believe you can strengthen your instincts by testing them; every time you prove yourself right or wrong, they grow stronger.

As for me, I’m on a search—and have been, I now realize, all my life—to find books to help me make sense of the world, to help me become a better person, to help me get my head around the big questions that I have and answer some of the small ones while I’m at it.

If every single person in this room made it a rule that wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is necessary—the world really would be a better place.

I consider the education of our senses and our emotions rather more important than the education of our ideas.

Througout my life I've looked to books for all sorts of reasons: to comfort me, to amuse me, to distract me, and to educate me.

Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.

What do we owe the dead, our dead? Maybe it’s first that we need to remember them.

The greatest thing about a nap is that it gives you two days for the price of one. You have the whole day before the nap, and when you wake up you have a whole day ahead of you.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

He longed for a minute that didn’t matter: perhaps for time to take a nap or watch something silly on television without feeling guilt or regret. He needed relief from the feeling that he was wasting precious time, not the added pressure of life’s greatest to-do list. I now realize that humans require down time. Quiet time is necessary to process all that happens to us on a daily basis—let alone over the course of a life.

questing is more important than finding, and a journey is more important than the mere arrival at a destination

when you are running away from something, it often ends up coming with you, especially if the thing you are running away from is your own behavior.