100+ Inspirational Book Quotes That Will Make You Want to Read More

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who doesn’t read lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors.” – Charles W. Eliot

“In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.” – Anna Quindlen

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” – Victor Hugo

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” – Albert Einstein

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” – Mason Cooley

“The unread story is not a book; it is a block of paper. It is only when it is read that it becomes a story.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“Books let you travel without moving your feet.” – Jhumpa Lahiri

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

“Great books help you understand, and if you understand, you may possibly empathize, and if you empathize, you might finally want to act.” – Barack Obama

“Literature is the foundation of humanity. The role of literature is to improve you, to make you become a better human being.” – Haruki Murakami

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

“When I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop.” – Jeanette Winterson

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” – Jessamyn West

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.” – Oscar Wilde

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

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” – W.B. Yeats

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Joseph Addison

“Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.” – Madeleine L’Engle

“A book is a dream that you hold in your hands.” – Neil Gaiman

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kipling

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” – G.K. Chesterton

“The pages fall away, and you’re in another world.” – Diana Gabaldon

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King

“We read to know that we are not alone.” – C.S. Lewis

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” – Stephen King

“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.” – Alan Cohen

“In a good book, the best is between the lines.” – Stefan Zweig

“There is nothing more luxurious than being lost in a book.” – Mary Ann Shaffer

“Once you have read a book that matters, you belong to a different world.” – Pico Iyer

“Reading is dreaming with open eyes.” – Marcel Proust

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” – Anna Quindlen

“To dive into a book is to swim in someone else’s dream.” – John Green

“The only way to escape the corruptible effect of seeing, is to stay in the dark.” – Samuel Beckett (on reading as retreat)

“We do not read to escape life, we read to learn how to live.” – Anonymous

“Reading is an act of resistance in a distracted world.” – Patti Smith

“I read to know who I am.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” – Cormac McCarthy (found through reading)

“A book has the power to change your life because it makes you believe in yourself.” – Paulo Coelho

“Reading is sometimes an antidote to loneliness.” – Elizabeth Hardwick

“Each book read builds a hidden bridge between your soul and the world.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.” – Dan Wakefield

“The act of reading is both intimate and infinite.” – Anne Fadiman

“I read therefore I am.” – Descartes (adapted)

“Every time you read a book, you become someone new.” – Anonymous

“Knowledge is power.” – Francis Bacon

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” – Abigail Adams

“The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.” – Aristotle

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” – Henry Ford

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Joseph Addison

“Books are the lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.” – Edward Gibbon

“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live.” – Mortimer Adler

“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.” – Marilyn vos Savant

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” – Margaret Fuller

“I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go into the other room and read a book.” – Groucho Marx

“Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.” – Mary Schmich

“There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual love of a good book.” – Kate DiCamillo

“Some people go to priests; others go to poetry; I go to books.” – Gwendolyn Brooks

“If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.” – François Mauriac

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“A house without books is like a body without a soul.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

“One cannot have enough books.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Books are the ultimate time machine.” – Anonymous

“The joy of reading is something money can’t buy.” – Harper Lee

“I laugh at everything I read—except the Bible and the phone book.” – Nora Ephron

“Books are my friends, my companions. They keep me cheerful when I’m lonely.” – Chiyo Uno

“My best friend is a person who gives me a book I have not read.” – Abraham Lincoln

“A book is a version of hope.” – Sam Shepard

“Between the pages of a book is a lovely place to be.” – Louise Penny

“Friends are fleeting, but books are forever.” – Anonymous

“A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.” – John Milton

“I often feel I’ve made friends just by reading certain books.” – Haruki Murakami

“Books are ships that sail to faraway lands.” – Emily Dickinson

“I’ve never met a stranger who wasn’t potentially a friend through a shared book.” – Anna Quindlen

“Books are lanterns for the soul.” – Victor Hugo

“Even the quietest book holds a voice that speaks directly to you.” – Isabel Allende

“I carry my favorite books in my heart like old friends.” – Anonymous

“Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience.” – Robert McKee

“Stories are the shadows of truth.” – Plato

“We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one.” – Steven Moffat

“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” – Muriel Rukeyser

“A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.” – Eudora Welty

“People don’t remember facts. They remember stories.” – Carmine Gallo

“Stories are the most ancient and resilient technology of the human heart.” – Daniel Taylor

“No matter how many times I hear a story, it still feels like the first time.” – Yoko Ogawa

“Stories have been used since the beginning of time to pass down culture, values, and identity.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“To outwit death, tell a story.” – Persian Proverb

“A story can go where logic cannot.” – Agatha Christie

“The stories we tell literally make the world.” – Ken Liu

“Lifelong learning begins at the library.” – Susan Orlean

“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.” – Voltaire

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it.” – William Faulkner

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” – Oscar Wilde

“The habit of reading is the only enjoyment I don’t have to borrow from elsewhere.” – W.H. Auden

“Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today.” – Holbrook Jackson

“Reading is not a habit you pick up; it’s a relationship you build.” – Anne Bogel

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

“A daily dose of reading keeps ignorance at bay.” – Anonymous

“Books are the compass and stars for a lifelong journey.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach

“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” – Theodore Roosevelt (applied to reading)

“The best time to start reading is now. The second best time is yesterday.” – Chinese Proverb (adapted)

“One book can change a life. One life can change the world.” – Anonymous

“I’ve never read a book that didn’t teach me something—even if it was just that I didn’t want to write like that.” – Isaac Asimov

“Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life.’” – Helen Exley

“I have always believed that books have the power to change lives. Mine was changed by reading.” – Malala Yousafzai

“Sometimes, a single sentence can shift your entire perspective.” – Cheryl Strayed

“A book fell open in my lap, and my life was changed.” – Arnold Bennett

“What we read changes the way we think, and the way we think changes everything.” – Unknown

“Books were my path from a girl in a small town to a woman with boundless horizons.” – Oprah Winfrey

“The right book at the right time can heal, inspire, and transform.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

“I owe everything I am and everything I hope to be to books.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Reading saved me from a life of silence.” – Maya Angelou

“A single book can open your eyes to a whole new world.” – Anonymous