Quotes & Sayings About Ability To Read

[John Clare's] father was a casual farm labourer, his family never more than a few days' wages from the poorhouse. Clare himself, from early childhood, scraped a living in the fields. He was schooled capriciously, and only until the age of 12, but from his first bare contact fell wildly in love with the written word. His early poems are remarkable not only for the way in which everything he sees flares into life, but also for his ability to pour his mingled thoughts and observations on to the page as they occur, allowing you, as perhaps no other poet has done, to watch the world from inside his head. Read The Nightingale's Nest, one of the finest poems in the English language, and you will see what I mean.
("John Clare, poet of the environmental crisis 200 years ago" in The Guardian.) — George Monbiot

We need to learn to "read with a comb" - that is, developing a value system that gives us the ability to be critical of what we study. Here the word critical does not mean approaching our studies with a negative attitude. It means being cautious and discerning. — R.C. Sproul

I think, if people actually read Calvin, rather than read Max Weber, he would be rebranded. He is a very respectable thinker. And one of the crucial things he brings to me, is that the encounter with another being is an ... occasion in which you can, to the best of your ability, honour the other person as being someone sent to you by God. — Marilynne Robinson

The British are proud of their ability to create a muddle and then muddle through all difficulties. I must shake the British pride: muddle is not an exclusively British institution. Read descriptions, for instance, of the over-organized, wonderfully systematic and "thorough" German war machine during the last war. — George Mikes

When I have an argument with someone, even with someone I am not very close with, I can't sleep at night thinking about it. It's terrible. But I still manage speak out frankly because I have also been gifted with the ability to read people. I can sense when they start to get irritated with me, and then, I shift. — Hans Rosling

The author brings to the table a healthy skepticism of the conventional wisdom, an admirable ability to separate fact from fancy, and an undisguised repugnance for the mumbo-jumbo that's the curse of so much commentary on anything to do with economics or investment. A World of Wealth is not only a lively read, but an exceptionally enlightening and rewarding one to boot. — Alan Abelson

No, Roger had not seen the funny side. But there had been a moment when, after looking at his watch, he had thought: I can remember when Christmas morning would start at about half past ten with a glass of Buck's Fizz in bed. Now it begins at half past five, with a test of my fine motor skills and ability to read Korean. — John Lanchester

Her way of being religious was as nonconformist as her nonreligious life had been. She was skeptical about many of the practices of the institutional church. She preferred to trust in the personal relationship she had grown to experience with God. This relationship transformed her ability to be in community and enabled her to see the essence of those around her: "The longer I live, the more I see God at work in people who don't have the slightest interest in religion and never read the Bible and wouldn't know what to do if they were persuaded to go inside a church."

For Dorothy [Day], the bread broken at Mass wasn't any more holy than the bread broken at shelters and soup kitchens. Church didn't happen in a building. It happened in the way people related to each other. Christ wasn't any more present in the liturgy than he was when on person listened with compassion to the pain of another. — Helen LaKelly Hunt

In many ways, the ability to read is the great divide that separates the very young from everyone else. Once we've joined the conspiracy of the literate, once we've crossed over to the land of the reading, everything changes. — Patricia T. O'Conner

No dead people beyond this door,' " he read aloud from beyond the door. " 'And, yes, if you suddenly have the ability to walk through walls, you're dead. You're not lying somewhere in a drainage ditch waiting to wake up. Get over it, and stay the hell out of my bathroom. — Darynda Jones

The ability to read is a prerequisite of baking. — Glenn Beck

The ability to read becomes devalued when what one has learned to read adds nothing of importance to one's life. — Bruno Bettelheim

Friends may be enemies, and enemies, friends. Lacking the ability to see into another's mind and read the motivations that lie within, no man can know for sure. — Shaun Myandee

I've read that under trauma, that you have this ability to kind of disconnect from the experience. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The ability to have somebody read something and see it, or for somebody to paint an entire landscape of visual imagery with just sheets of words - that's magical. That's what I've been trying to strive for - to draw a clear picture, to open up a new dimension. — Mos Def

Does it matter if you read to your child from an ebook or a print book? Each type of book has its own merit. Ebooks are a huge convenience, easy to download and take on a trip. Dictionary features give children the ability to instantly discover the meanings of new words and concepts. Print books have a different type of physical presence and carry a different feeling, as children themselves have pointed out.SALE Inc. According to another, similar national survey, kids say they prefer ebooks when they're out and about and when they don't want their FOR Publ., friends to know what they're reading, but that print is better for sharNOT ing with friends and reading at bedtime.31 It strikes me as interesting that most children still prefer print books before going to sleep. — Anonymous

When nobody read, dyslexia wasn't a problem. When most people had to hunt, a minor genetic variation in your ability to focus attention was hardly a problem, and may even have been an advantage. When most people have to make it through high school, the same variation can become a genuinely life-altering disease. — Alison Gopnik

Have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read means? That it is the key which admits us to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagination? to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it annihilates time and space for us. — James Russell Lowell

Payton "Sin" Sinclair was an unapologetic people-watcher. As a sports consultant, working with some of the biggest and most recognizable athletes in sports and business, he had to be able to read the smallest nuances of others. That ability was just one of the unique attributes that set him apart from the competition and made him the go-to person when corporations wanted to align themselves with the top professional athletes in the country. — Francis Ray

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.' — Maya Angelou

The writer whose words are going to be read by children has a heavy responsibility. And yet, despite the undeniable fact that the children's minds are tender, they are also far more tough than many people realize, and they have an openness and an ability to grapple with difficult concepts which many adults have lost. Writers of children's literature are set apart by their willingness to confront difficult questions. — Madeleine L'Engle

Our ability to read out this sequence of our own genome has the makings of a philosophical paradox. Can an intelligent being comprehend the instructions to make itself? - John Sulston Scholars — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I was arguing not that everyone should read books by ladies - though shifting the balance matters - but that maybe the whole point of reading is to be able to explore and also transcend your gender (and race and class and orientation and nationality and moment in history and age and ability) and experience being others. — Rebecca Solnit

We are not very good at this. Our success rests on our international experience and on our ability to read the market. And I contest the notion that you can only succeed in China when you are well-connected. Neither my husband nor I are "princelings" - children of influential people, that is. And yet China has enabled us to succeed. — Zhang Xin

When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language. — James Earl Jones

I find a danger in watching films. It is like passive dreaming. It requires no participation, no effort. It induces passivity. It is baby food; no need to masticate, no need to carve. There is no need to learn to play an instrument, to learn to read a book. People stretch on specially inclined chairs and receive the images in utter, infantile passivity. Speech, already inadequate in America, will soon disappear together with the ability to derive significance from the printed world. This is as radical a change as from monkey to man, it is an evolution from man into automaton. — Anais Nin

Writing is for stories to be read, books to be published, poems to be recited, plays to be acted, songs to be sung, newspapers to be shared, letters to be mailed, jokes to be told, notes to be passed, recipes to be cooked, messages to be exchanged, memos to be circulated, announcements to be posted, bills to be collected, posters to be displayed and diaries to be concealed. Writing is for ideas, action, reflection, and experience. It is not for having your ignorance exposed, your sensitivity destroyed, or your ability assessed. — Frank Smith

For inspiration, I would turn again and again to Lieutenant Jason "Jay" Redman, a Navy SEAL who had been shot seven times and had undergone nearly two dozen surgeries. He had placed a hand-drawn sign on the door to his room at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It read: ATTENTION. To all who enter here. If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, go elsewhere. The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere. From: The Management. — Robert M. Gates

Discernment is the son of good judgment and the father of self-control. When mixed with an already clear conscience, the ability to read the true motives of a critic keeps one's conscience both clear and at ease. — Criss Jami

We all think that we are uniquely complex, that no one can see what we are thinking - yet we also believe that we have the rare ability to read others. This fascinates me at the moment. — Harlan Coben

HOW TO FOIL A UFO ABDUCTION 1. Do not panic. The extraterrestrial biological entity (EBE) may sense your fear and act rashly. 2. Control your thoughts. Do not think of anything violent or upsetting - the EBE may have the ability to read your mind. Try to avoid mental images of abduction (boarding the saucer, anal probes); such images may encourage them to take you. 3. Resist verbally. Firmly tell the EBE to leave you alone. — Joshua Piven

These Greek-speaking city folk were no country bumpkins, like those they called pagans - pagani - a term meaning "rustics" or "hicks."18 They inhabited one of the liveliest, most urbane, and culturally diverse regions on earth. Many could read and write; the early Christians, like the Jews, considered themselves People of the Book and prized the ability to read Scripture. — Richard E. Rubenstein

I believe in any kid's ability to read any book and form their own judgments. It's the job of a parent to guide his/her child through the reading of every book imaginable. Censorship of any form punishes curiosity. — Sherman Alexie

From the onset of the 'Live-Read' series, we wanted to hit all the major writers and Woody Allen is simply one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. He has ability to match pathos and comedy and drama and then turn it all on a dime. If you're going to make a series based on dialogue, you can't find much better than Woody Allen. — Jason Reitman

Children are ingenuous. They are also blessed with uncanny ability to read a person's character instantly. Even though they are inexperienced and unsophisticated, they often know instinctively who can be trusted and who is the charlatan. — Wess Stafford

The ability to name poetry's gestures and rhetorics isn't required to write or read them, any more than a painter needs to know the physics of color to bring forward a landscape. The eye and hand and ear know what they need to know. Some of us want to know more, because knowing pleases. — Jane Hirshfield

I think ... Have I given up anything by living with another person? Has there been a trade-off?
Always, there is a trade-off. And the answer comes to me instantly. I have given up a certain degree of freedom. The ability to plow through my life with utter disregard for the thoughts and feelings of other people. I can no longer read a magazine and throw it on the floor.
In exchange, I get unlimited access to the one person I have met in my life whom I automatically felt was out of my league. My favorite human being, the single person I cherish above all others. This is the person I get to share the oxygen in the room with .
And for this, I will happily scrub the toilet. — Augusten Burroughs

Learning improves in school environments where there are comprehensive music and arts programs. They increase the ability of young people to do math. They increase the ability of young people to read. And most important of all, they're a lot of fun. — William J. Clinton

The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. — Malcolm X

A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed respecting a question: all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate; but speak he must. And if he is a man of ability, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully. — Thomas B. Macaulay

You cannot live this life anymore without the ability to read. — Walter Dean Myers

You learn to write better by reading.
You learn to read better by writing.
Reading and writing work together
to improve your ability to think! — Unknown

But you don"t get it. There are so many things I love about you. There's your tendency to hit me on my shoulder because you think I'm saying something stupid or annoying. When you argue with me instead of letting me have the last word. The way you love to play football and embrace it. Your love for your friends and family. Your ability to forgive is impeccable. I love how you like to read even if one of your favorite books is something my best friend had written. The way you are around me, acting like yourself without a care in the world. I could tell that when you were dating my brother, you hid yourself...I knew that and I know it wasn't you. I love how you must think that your violence can be categorized in type of real aggression disorder but it's just you. I love how you can basically eat the whole world in front of me and how you can stand by me even when I make the biggest mistakes. I wish I could spend my entire life telling you I love you because there's so many more reasons. — Nikki20038

I think we begin to lose the ability to read in the deepest, most interpretive ways because were not kind of calming our mind and just focusing on the argument or the story. — Nicholas G. Carr

Hello, my name is Albany, and I have a telepathic connection with my twin sister, along with the ability to read minds. — C.B. Cook

I'm constantly amazed by the ability a child has to show sympathy, to read emotions, to get to the heart of any situation. It's unfiltered and completely inspiring. — David Duchovny

Few coffee shops have books, fewer have good books, and even less will have one book that can change your whole life. Now, the question is: How many people can find that book? And, among those who do, how many will read it? Because, you see, life always provides opportunities, but not many can see them, when they're just there, waiting to be found, when they come our way, even if in the most unexpected place in the world. One has to be very sharp to recognize a window of opportunity in a wall of illusions. And the ability to redirect attention, demands that one can be capable as well of knowing his own limitations in the vast sea of energy and vibrations. Now, I could be talking about a book, a group or a person, as the axiom remains true to itself. — Robin Sacredfire

We hypostatize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of the information; the message has changed. This is a language which we have lost the ability to read. We ourselves are a part of this language; changes in us are changes in the content of the information. We ourselves are information-rich; information enters us, is processed and is then projected outward once more, now in an altered form. We are not aware that we are doing this, that in fact this is all we are doing — Philip K. Dick

There is massive evidence that self-selected reading, or reading what you want to read, is responsible for most of our literacy development. Readers have better reading ability, know more vocabulary, write better, spell better, and have better control of complex grammatical constructions. In fact, it is impossible to develop high levels of literacy without being a dedicated reader, and dedicated readers rarely have serious problems in reading and writing. — Stephen D. Krashen

North Koreans have two stories running in their heads at all times, like trains on parallel tracks. One is what you are taught to believe; the other is what you see with your own eyes. It wasn't until I escaped to South Korea and read a translation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four that I found a word for this peculiar condition: doublethink. This is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your mind at the same time - and somehow not go crazy. This "doublethink" is how you can shout slogans denouncing capitalism in the morning, then browse through the market in the afternoon to buy smuggled South Korean cosmetics. It — Yeonmi Park

a man does not become the leader of a flock through brute strength but through his ability to read situations correctly. — Jo Nesbo

I'd heard or read somewhere that the ability to feel pain is the first thing to go. That's not true. The ability to care goes first. — Vikki Wakefield

I'd say," the Ranger answered after a few seconds' deliberation, "that he'll be heading south now that he has the chance. Back into Araluen."
"How do you know that?" Horace asked. He was always impressed at the two Rangers' ability to read a situation and come up with the correct answer to a problem. Sometimes, he thought, they almost seemed to have divine guidance.
"I'm guessing," Halt told him. — John Flanagan

Stuart Clark's The Sun Kings is undoubtedly the most gripping and brilliant popular-science history account that I have ever read. It is informative, accurate, and relevant. Clark's ability to write so vividly makes me seethe with jealousy. — Owen Gingerich

A stroke will change your life no doubt. But it's not the end. It can be a beginning . Life is different but its far from over..A stroke happens in your head but it doesn't have to dominate your thoughts. You're stronger than that stroke.. Get pissed, work hard at recovery, Have fun , Make a plan to move forward!, Work on a prjoect read a book or anything with in your ability stay safe. Above all don't turn away family and friends they love you.. And love yourself too. It really makes a difference.. I've been thru this.too. God bless! — Robin Arthur Jessup

The anti-apartheid prisoners on the island, like so many in every age and nation, found that Shakespeare had a peculiar ability to gentle their condition. They used to gather clandestinely to read the plays; on one occasion, the book was passed around for each man to mark his favourite lines. — Daniel Hannan

yet energy flowed between them. As her surrender and response heightened his own pleasure and increased his ability to read her, he could play her better, which increased her response, and on and on, spiraling upward into the instinctive dance linking a dominant and submissive. — Cherise Sinclair

First, you don't have to be smart to read books. Lots of idiots read books. Trust me, the ability to read does not necessarily mean the ability to think. — Marie Sexton

Freedom alone is not enough without light to read at night, without time or access to water to irrigate your farm, without the ability to catch fish to feed your family. — Nelson Mandela

For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people's faces. — Osamu Dazai

Of course, I still saw Edward at school, because there wasn't anything Charlie [her dad] could do about that. And then, Edward spent almost every night in my room, too, but Charlie wasn't precisely aware of that. Edward's ability to climb easily and silently through my second-story window was almost as useful as his ability to read Charlie's mind. — Stephenie Meyer

Don't let them see how fast you really are; don't let them see the control you have, the ability you have to read them and the situation. Let them think you're out of control. Let them think you are going to be easy. Because they will be anything but, and you need to be ready for the fight of your life. — Shannon Mayer

It is not Kafka's fault that his wonderful writings have lately turned into a fad, and are read by people who have neither the ability nor the desire to absorb literature. — Herman Hesse

Studying design has made me a much, much more astute observer of this aspect of business. And I'm working mightily to improve my empathic skills. I've dramatically improved my ability to read facial expressions - and I'm trying to be a better, more attentive listener. — Daniel H. Pink

All of my fights are planned. I study my opponents from A to Z. How he walks, how he looks, how he speaks, gestures of the human body, which is a certain language that provides you lots of information if you have the ability to read it. You just need to pay attention to it and gain experience over the years. — Wladimir Klitschko

I seem to grow more acutely conscious of the swift passage of time as I grow older. When I was small, days and hours were long and spacious, and there was play and acres of leisure, and many children's books to read. I remember that as I was writing a poem on "Snow" when I was eight. I said aloud, "I wish I could have the ability to write down the feelings I have now while I'm still little, because when I grow up I will know how to write, but I will have forgotten what being little feels like." And so it is that childlike sensitivity to new experiences and sensations seems to diminish in an inverse proportion to growth of technical ability. As we become polished, so do we become hardened and guilty of accepting eating, sleeping, seeing, and hearing too easily and lazily, without question. We become blunt and callous and blissfully passive as each day adds another drop to the stagnant well of our years. — Sylvia Plath

If your salvation was dependent on your ability to read and understand scripture, Jesus would have been an author. — Steve Maraboli

When I got the script to this movie, The Good Girl, I read it in an hour. The writer, Mike White, has an ability to create characters that are so creepy and dysfunctional and human, with this duality that makes people feel empathy for them at the same time. My first thought was 'Was this sent to the right person?' I called my agent. 'Are they sure? Let's say yes before they realize they've sent it to the wrong person!. — Jennifer Aniston

Bruce Friedman, who blogs about the use of computers in medicine, has also described how the Internet is altering his mental habits. "I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print," he says.4 A pathologist on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a "staccato" quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. — Nicholas Carr

Animals hold us to what is present: to who we are at the time, not who we've been or how are bank accounts describe us. What's obvious to an animal is not the embellishment that fattens our emotional resumes but what's bedrock and current in us: aggression, fear, insecurity, happiness, or equanimity. Because they have the ability to read our involuntary ticks and scents, we're transparent to them and thus exposed - we're finally ourselves. — Gretel Ehrlich

ESPN, is having the ability to foretell future outcomes in sports. — Anthony Liccione

Stupid people like to delude themselves that while they may not be clever, they were at least able to compensate with feelings and insights denied to the intellectual ... It was precisely this kind of false belief that made stupid people so stupid. The truth was the clever people had infinitely more resources from which to make the leaps of connection that the world called intuition. What was 'intelligence' after all, but the ability to read into things? — Stephen Fry

I think for Amazon's customers, it offers a kind of addictive service - the ability to shop without leaving your house, the ability to read without going to a bookstore or a library. — Brad Stone

One reason I like to highlight reading is, reading is the beginnings of the ability to be a good student. And if you cant read, its going to be hard to realize dreams; its going to be hard to go to college. So when your teachers say, read-you ought to listen to her. — George W. Bush

I believe in the magic of books. I believe that during certain periods in our lives we are drawn to particular books
whether it's strolling down the aisles of a bookshop with no idea whatsoever of what it is that we want to read and suddenly finding the most perfect, most wonderfully suitable book staring us right in the face. Unblinking. Or a chance meeting with a stranger or friend who recommends a book we would never ordinarily reach for. Books have the ability to find their own way into our lives. — Cecelia Ahern

What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends. The ability to have somebody read something and see it, or for somebody to paint an entire landscape of visual imagery with just sheets of words - that's magical. — Mos Def

If the ability to read carries the average man no higher than the gossip of his neighbours, if he asks nothing more nourishing out of books and the theatre than he gets hanging about the store, the bar and the street-corner, then culture is bound to be dragged down to him instead of his being lifted up by culture. — Edith Wharton

No skill shapes a child's future success in school or in life more than the ability to read. — Bob Riley

Micromessaging
communicating with other human beings through visual, audible, sublingual means, no doubt predates our ability to speak. We actually read micromessages quite naturally without thinking about them. You might say human beings read each other's micromessages subconsciously, in the same way that one dog understands another dog is unfriendly simply because the dog's fur is standing on end. The dogs read each other perfectly. It's not all that different for people. — Stephen Young

Despite my ability to read people, I felt like an outsider, like someone watching a party from the other side of the glass. I could see these things unfold, but I couldn't quite understand the dynamics, the deep knowing that comes from growing up with people you care about. — Sarah Ockler

Nefret had always had an uncanny ability to read his thoughts. 'Did she cry?' she asked sweetly. 'And then you kissed her? You shouldn't have done that. I'm sure you meant well, but kissing someone out of pity is always a mistake. — Elizabeth Peters

To read a work one must also read the underlying infrastructure to make legible its aesthetic and political composition. This ability to read a phenomenon based on the infrastructures of resonance around it is what I refer to as seeing power. The — Nato Thompson

Every person has the latent ability to read minds and influence the physical world without touching it, but they don't have the ability to connect with the power source. — Maria V. Snyder

We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives-like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write. — George W. Bush

Read The Charisma Factor - How to Develop Your Natural Leadership Ability by Robert J. Richardson and S. Katharine Thayer. It is a superb book for any aspiring leader, or a current one, who seeks to advance to the next level. 195. — Robin S. Sharma

Each of us, Leonard Read said, must become candles of liberty in the darkness of collectivist ideas. The brighter we each shine through our understanding and ability to articulate the meaning of freedom, the more we will be beacons that can attract others. — Richard Ebeling

People's emotions are rarely put into words , far more often they are expressed through other cues.
the key to intuiting another's feelings is in the ability to read nonverbal channels , tone of voice , gesture , facial expression and the like — Daniel Goleman

I remember being taught to read at a very early age. Like creepy young. I remember being in the crib, reading. My parents were very impressed. My reading speed, comprehension and overall ability has remained at that level ever since. — J.J. Abrams

Trusting others puts us at risk. Yet failure to trust entails risk as well. The ability to navigate through this minefield successfully is one of life's most valuable assets. DeSteno provides by far the best account of what science has learned about how we do this. The Truth About Trust is also a terrific read. — Robert H. Frank

You picked a man who can read tax code and date a celibate for two years. That's some serious patience. I have zero doubt in my ability to wait you out. I have zero doubt that you're meant to be my girl. — Joshilyn Jackson

The acquisition of knowledge from books provides an experience different from the Internet. Reading is relatively time-consuming; to ease the process, style is important. Because it is not possible to read all books on a given subject, much less the totality of books, or to organize easily everything one has read, learning from books places a premium on conceptual thinking - the ability to recognize comparable data and events and project patterns into the future. And style propels the reader into a relationship with the author, or with the subject matter, by fusing substance and aesthetics. — Henry Kissinger

Most people believe that great leaders are distinguished by their ability to give compelling answers. This profound book shatters that assumption, showing that the more vital skill is asking the right questions ... . Berger poses many fascinating questions, including this one: What if companies had mission questions rather than mission statements? This is a book everyone ought to read - without question. — Adam Grant

He was the smartest and best-read person any of us had every known, but he wore his learning so lightly and had such curiosity about other people that he had the ability to make everyone around him feel smart and well-read. — Will Schwalbe

All America loses when any person is denied or forced out of a job because of sexual orientation. Being gay, the last time I thought about it, seemed to have nothing to do with the ability to read a balance book, fix a broken bone, or change a spark plug. — Bill Clinton

When he read James Wilkinson's book The Human Body in 1851, Thoreau was impressed. "Wilkinson's book," he wrote in his journal, "to some extent realizes what I have dreamed of, -a return to the primitive analogical and derivative sense of words. His ability to trace analogies often leads to a truer word than more remarkable writers have found ... The faith he puts in old and current expressions as having sprung from an instinct wiser than science, and safely to be trusted if they can be interpreted ... Wilkinson finds a home for the imagination ... All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy; we reason from our hands to our heads. — Henry David Thoreau

The ability to write and read books is one of the things that transformed us as a species. — James Gleick

There are movies I've seen or books I've read that attach themselves in a way that's greater than the ability to understand why. How do you explain that kind of connectedness? — Peter Riegert

Some couples
most couples
waited years and years before they developed the ability to read or to feel each other so well. Then there were those very few who touched each other so deeply, so perfectly that first time that the bond was almost immediate. — Lora Leigh

Hosting is an art form. Like acting, singing, or comedy hosting is a craft. It's a delicate dance of timing, the ability to read the room, and the art of conversation. — Todd Newton

If I point to anything that makes me who I am, it's that I have a whole lot of common sense. I've got a good mind and a good ability to read people and situations. — Michelle Obama