Begin To Read Quotes & Sayings

I suppose that it was inevitable that my word-base broadened. I could now for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk. You couldn't have gotten me out of my books with a wedge ... Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life. — Alex Haley

There is divine beauty in learning ... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you. — Elie Wiesel

You fight with dreams as with formless and meaningless life, seeking a pattern, a route that must surely be there, as when you begin to read a book and you don't yet know in which direction it will carry you. What you would like is the opening of an abstract and absolute space and time in which you could move, following an exact, taut trajectory; but when you seem to be succeeding, you realize you are motionless, blocked, forced to repeat everything from the beginning. — Italo Calvino

Surrender is when we come to the end of our struggle with ourselves and God can begin. Surrender is acknowledging that we need Divine Intervention; we don't know it all, we do not see what God sees.

When we give ourselves the first 15 minutes of the first hour of the day, to pray, meditate, read, journal, reflect, silently inquire after God, we set the tone for clear thinking throughout our day. - SHANNON TANNER — Shannon Tanner

The Holy Spirit can't remind you of something you never read which is why it's important to memorize scripture. When you have Bible verses inscribed in your mind, you're carrying a concealed weapon to use against the enemy in battle. Find a passage today and begin laying up His words in your heart and in doing so you will be prepared for any trials that will come. — David Jeremiah

Here's what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer's heart. I want a novel so poetic that I do not have to turn to the standby anthologies of poetry to satisfy that itch for music, for perfection and economy of phrasing, for exactness of tone. Then, too, I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food or drink because a writer has possessed me, crazed with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next. — Pat Conroy

You will never be able to see clearly when people around you distort your view of truth with their own clouded version. You will begin to read into everything incorrectly and find yourself lost in a delusional story stitched together from the crumbs of over analyzed words once spoken, misunderstandings or speculation. Life should not be wasted by collecting clues or piecing together a puzzle about how someone feels. Love is straightforward and it is clearly seen on the cloudiest days of your life. If someone loves you it will be obvious. They won't let you go, until you ask them to. — Shannon L. Alder

Well, when I was a young writer the people we read were Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sartre, Camus, Celine, Malraux. And to begin with, I was a bit of a copycat writer and very derivative and tried to write a novel using their voices, really ... I keep it out of print. — Mordecai Richler

I had reached a juncture in my reading life that is familiar to those who have been there: in the allotted time left to me on earth, should I read more and more new books, or should I cease with that vain consumption
vain because it is endless
and begin to reread those books that had given me the intensest pleasure in my past. — Lydia Davis

The hunter is among the most innocent of men; living in the moment makes him feel pure. When he returns in the evening, his body aches, his mind is full of pictures of leaves and sky; he does not want to read documents. His miseries, his perplexities have receded, and they will tay away, provided
after food and wine, laughter and exchange of storeis
he gets up at dawn to do it all over again.
But the winter king, less occupied, will begin to think about his conscience. — Hilary Mantel

After Mrs. Culpepper, Max probably knew more about her than any other person in her life. They were the only two people who knew of her dream to buy a country cottage. And he was the only one to know of her silly wish for a hound.

Which, now that she thought on it, was a sad state of affairs, indeed. She had no better claim to friendship outside of Mrs. Culpepper than a man with whom she'd spent such a nominal amount of time? And who had been read to toss her bodily from Caldwell Manor only yesterday?

Surely she had more depth of character than what could be mined in the course of an evening. She did not begin and end with her dreams of a thousand pounds, a hound, and a home. She was vastly more complex, far more interesting than that. She had to be. The alternative was too depressing to entertain. Almost as depressing as never having known a friend who'd not been paid to keep her company. But that, at least, could be changed. — Alissa Johnson

The mother eagle teaches her little ones to fly by making their nest so uncomfortable that they are forced to leave it and commit themselves to the unknown world of air outside. And just so does our God to us. He stirs up our comfortable nests, and pushes us over the edge of them, and we are forced to use our wings to save ourselves from fatal falling. Read your trials in this light, and see if you cannot begin to get a glimpse of their meaning. Your wings are being developed. — Hannah Whitall Smith

When children are very young, you read them books that are positive to help them go to sleep. But there comes a moment when they begin to understand the difficulties of the world. They know there are problems and the books they read should reflect that, not gloss over them. — Michael Morpurgo

Are you often struck, when you become sufficiently intimate with other people to know something of their development, how late their lives begin so to speak? I mean these men you meet who seem to have read everything, done everything, and yet they were pure barbarians until they left school, and had turned twenty perhaps before they began to be interested in the things that interest them now? — C.S. Lewis

The initial small step is simple: Rather than making a sweeping determination to tackle the Great Books (all of them), decide to begin on one of the reading lists in Part II. As you read each book, you'll follow the pattern of the trivium. First you'll try to understand the book's basic structure and argument; next, you'll evaluate the book's assertions; finally, you'll form an opinion about the book's ideas. You'll have to exercise these three skills of reading - understanding, analysis, and evaluation - differently for each kind of book. — Susan Wise Bauer

The more you continue to read Scripture, the more you begin to think as He thinks and act as He acts. And that's how, over time, you gain the wisdom of the ages. — Wayne Cordeiro

When we read, we decide when, where, how long, and about what. One of the few places on earth that it is still possible to experience an instant sense of freedom and privacy is anywhere you open up a good book and begin to read. When we read silently, we are alone with our own thoughts and one other voice. We can take our time, consider, evaluate, and digest what we read - with no commercial interruptions, no emotional music or special effects manipulation. And in spite of the advances in electronic information exchange, the book is still the most important medium for presenting ideas of substance and value, still the only real home of literature. — Andrew Clements

Today at school I will learn to read at once; then tomorrow I will begin to write, and the day after tomorrow to cipher. Then with my acquirements I will earn a great deal of money, and with the first money I have in my pocket I will immediately buy for my papa a beautiful new cloth coat. But what am I saying? Cloth, indeed! It shall be all made of gold and silver, and it shall have diamond buttons. That poor man really deserves it; for to buy me books and to have me taught he has remained in his shirt sleeves ... And in this cold! It is only fathers who are capable of such sacrifices! ... — Carlo Collodi

It's a fair-sized job to write a book that people can be bothered just to read; when they begin to steal copies, you are really getting some place. — Ruth Stout

Sinner's Prayer Heavenly Father, I come to you in prayer asking forgiveness for my sins. I believe that Jesus died for my sins and was resurrected sitting on the right hand of the Father. Through Jesus, I believe I have eternal life. I believe that His death and resurrection provided for my forgiveness. I trust in Jesus and Jesus alone as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank you Lord, for saving me and forgiving me! I ask you right now to come into my heart and I give you my life. I accept Jesus as my personal savior. I confess with my mouth that I am born again. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and cleanse me Lord. Make me new in you. I receive your Holy Spirit and can begin a new life now in you Jesus. Help and guide me daily to read your word and to walk with you God. In Jesus' name Amen. — Janie McGee

If this is not already a habit of yours, now is the time to begin reading a portion of the Bible every day. Ideally, read it together as husband and wife - in the morning, perhaps, or before bed. — Alex Kendrick

We read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done. And we read in order to experience different styles. — Stephen King

If you read history you will find that the Christians begin the most for the present world are just the ones that thought the most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot. in the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark one Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so in effective in this. And that Heaven and you'll get the earth "thrown in": aim at earth and you'll get neither. — C.S. Lewis

Other than being an artist, I've also wanted to be a writer since I was able to read. The simple fact is that I've aslo been a writer my whole life. Thanks to the magic of blogs and self-publishing, anyone can be a writer now. In fact, even before all of these new and exciting outlets became available anyone still could be a writer. It's actually a simple process. Just begin writing. You don't need anyone's permission, or a degree; hell, you don't even need an audience. Just write. The act of writing makes you a writer. So now that I've completed this book, I dub myself an Official Writer. — Cee Jay Inky Jones

He wanted to relive those confused days, that life of discovery, to be bound to those round tables and lectures and exams. There were things he had always meant to understand better [ ... ] He wanted to read what he was told each evening, to do as he was told. There were great writers he had never read, would never read. His daughters would begin that journey soon enough, the world opening up for them in its entirety. — Jhumpa Lahiri

The building has settled into itself so that when you walk down the aisle, you can hear it yielding to the burden of your weight. It's a pleasanter sound than an echo would be, an obliging, accommodating sound. You have to be there alone to hear it. Maybe it can't feel the weight of a child. But if it is still standing when you read this, and if you are not half a world away, sometime you might go there alone, just to see what I mean. After a while I did begin to wonder if I liked the church better with no people in it. I know they're planning to pull it down. They're waiting me out, which is kind of them. — Marilynne Robinson

THE FIRST CHAPTER, MARCUS, is essential. If the readers don't like it, they won't read the rest of your book. How do you plan to begin yours? — Joel Dicker

But the more I read ... after awhile ... I begin to find they were all writing about the same thing, this same dull old here-today-gone-tomorrow scene ... Shakespeare, Milton, Matthew Arnold, even Baudelaire, even this cat whoever he was that wrote Beowulf ... the same scene for the same reasons and to the same end, whether it was Dante with his pit or Baudelaire with his pot ... the same dull old scene ... — Ken Kesey

One way to stop worrying and get the courage to begin is to plan and prepare thoroughly in advance. Set clear goals and objectives, then gather information. Read and research books and blogs in your chosen field. Write out detailed plans of action, and then take the first step towards relieving stress. — Brian Tracy

Some days I'm sure I'll be unravelled,
That I'm just a piece of thread,
Woven from everything I've heard
And every book I've ever read.
That someone will find my ending
Or a spot where I've worn thin,
And they'll pull me right apart
Back to the place where I begin,
Until they've found that every fibre
Isn't one to call my own,
Its from the thoughts and works of others
Thats I've been so crudely sewn.
And there's nothing I can make
Or think or do or be or say,
That isn't someone else
Woven in just a different way.
Then once I come undone,
Once who I thought I was grows small,
What if I look at all that's left
And there is nothing there at all? — Emily Hanson

Before she came ill, David's mother would often tell him that stories were alive. They weren't alive in the way that people were alive, or even dogs or cats. ( ... ) Stories were different, though: they came alive in the telling. Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by torch light beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world. ( ... ) They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge. Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change. They could take root in the imagination and transform the reader. Stories wanted to be read, David's mother would whisper. They needed it. It was the reason they forced themselves from their world into ours. They wanted us to give them life. — John Connolly

At some point, Fatio had to tear those eyes away from Eliza and begin the same sort of dance cum duel with Waterhouse. Again, if Fatio had been a fellow of the Royal Society or a doctor at some university, Waterhouse would have had some idea what to make of him. As it was, Fatio had to conjure his credentials and bona fides out of thin are, as it were, by dropping names and scattering references to books he'd read, problems he'd solved, inflated reputations he had punctured, experiments he had performed, creatures he had seen. — Neal Stephenson

Find the willpower to begin work. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I once read a question that somone used to begin their self-assessment: who do you most admire and why? If you are an american and have a TV in your house, you'd probably be tempted to list some sports figure, actor, singer, artist, successful businessman, or influential leader. We have been led to equate greatness with success, talent, power and recognition. Would we include on our list a single mom or dad who has faithfully served their family, the person who volunteers at the soup kitchen or homeless shelter, the guy who shovels snow for the elderly couple down the street or the soldier serving somewhere around the globe? — Donna Mull

Well, we think that time 'passes,' flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see. The book is all there, all at once, between its covers. But if you want to read the story and understand it, you must begin with the first page, and go forward, always in order. So the universe would be a very great book, and we would be very small readers. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Being poor is neither history nor permanent but a status. Writers who begin with this sentence "X is a poorest country in the world," to describe any African country are lacking intelligence. How would they feel if we turned the tables and used sentences that portray historical offenses committed to other countries? I bet nobody would like to read, "X is a country that killed millions of Y during Z's regime. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

In the time between when you first read a script and are offered the role and the time when you begin to shoot, I really love putting in the time and work on that and getting a solid backstory to a character and researching all that I can about what that person does for a vocation or their upbringing or where they're from. — John Hawkes

We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images. — John Gardner

Barrie and the wonderful characters he created, Lewis Carroll, even French literature, like Baudelaire or over in the States, Poe, you open those books, you open The Flowers of Evil and begin to read. If it were written today, you'd be absolutely stupefied by the work. It's this incredible period where the work is timeless, ageless. So yeah, I just love all those guys. It's my deep passion in those great 19th century writers. — Johnny Depp

Mrs. Casnoff made me write a statement to the Council a few weeks after it happened. Everything's in there."
"I read that. And neither I,nor the rest of the Council, believe it contains the entire truth."
I made a sound that I'd like to say was a cry of indignant, but it was actually closer to a bleat. Probably because Dad was right: that stupid statement didn't even begin to touch the whole truth.
"Your entanglement with Archer Cross-"
"We were never entangled," I spluttered. — Rachel Hawkins

I did exactly what you told me to do, Nick. Didn't you tell me to just write the stupid book already? And that even doing the worst thing on the planet had to count for something? Well I can't think of anything worse than what I'm about to do, which is why I think you deserve an explanation. And maybe after you read it you'll realize why I don't have the hope that you have. The truth is this: We begin and end alone. — Matthew J. Hefti

While I thus cogitate in disquiet and perplexity, half submerged in dark waters of a well in an Arabian oasis, I suddenly hear a voice from the background of my memory, the voice of an old Kurdish nomad: If water stands motionless in a pool it grows stale and muddy, but when it moves and flows it becomes clear: so, too, man in his wanderings. Whereupon, as if by magic, all disquiet leaves me. I begin to look upon myself with distant eyes, as you might look at the pages of a book to read a story from them; and I begin to understand that my life could not have taken a different course. For when I ask myself, 'What is the sum total of my life?' somthing in me seems to answer, 'You have set out to exchange one world for another-to gain a new world for yourself in exchange for an old one which you never really possessed.' And I know with startling clarity that such an undertaking might indeed take an entire lifetime. — Muhammad Asad

To become a novelist, the most crucial thing one must do is read, read and read again - gradually you begin to think like a writer. Ideas are not found - they are shaped. — Avi

I think it will last," said Grandfather. "In my experience when people once begin to read they go on. They begin because they think they ought to and they go on because they must. Yes. They find it widens life. We're all greed for life, you know, and our short span of existence can't give us all that we hunger for, the time is too short and our capacity not large enough. But in books we experience all life vicariously. — Elizabeth Goudge

She couldn't read his expression. As he started toward her, she recalled the way he'd seemed to glide through the sand the first time she'd ever seen him; she remembered their kiss on the boat dock the night of his sister's wedding. And she heard again the words she'd said to him on the day they'd said good-bye. She was besieged by a storm of conflicting emotions - desire, regret, longing, fear, grief, love. There was so much to say, yet what could they really begin to say in this awkward setting and with so much time already passed? — Nicholas Sparks

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again on Tuesday? But at eight, 10, 12, you don't realise you're going to die. There is always the possibility of escape. There is always somewhere else and far away, a fact I had never really appreciated until I read Gitta Sereny's profoundly unsettling Cries Unheard about child-killer Mary Bell.
At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. We have jobs, children, partners, debts, responsibilities. And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with.
This, I think, is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks. — Mark Haddon

She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe . . . son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her - I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew." Jem — Harper Lee

When I bought a collection of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, I returned home with a bright enthusiasm to begin the long march into the Russian soul. Though I've failed to read either man to completion, they both helped me to imagine that my fictional South Carolina was as vast a literary acreage as their Russia. — Pat Conroy

Stay relaxed; if you begin to get nervous take a few deep breaths slowly to relax yourself and then get back to work.
4) Read the directions slowly and carefully. — Jawanza Kunjufu

Once you've read too many trashy best-sellers, you begin to look for something with substance, something that attempts to define the universe. — Jessica Zafra

If you begin to read, you find the answers you seek. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Like most of my friends in school, I was a member of multiple circulating libraries; and all of us, to begin with, borrowed and read the same things. — Aravind Adiga

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be. — Christopher Hitchens

Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts
but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. — Joseph Campbell

Words, to me, are the same as an instrument is to a musician. I never know where this typewriter is going to take me until I begin. I never know what I'm feeling until I read over what I have written. — Tessa Emily Hall

As it is the sister of reading, so it is the mother of prayer. Though a man's heart be much indisposed to prayer, yet, if he can but fall into a meditation of God, and the things of God, his heart will soon come off to prayer ... Begin with reading or hearing. Go on with meditation; end in prayer ... Reading without meditation is unfruitful; meditation without reading is hurtful; to meditate and to read without prayer upon both, is without blessing. — William Bridge

A lady?' Jem raised his head. His face as scarlet. 'After all those things she said about you, a lady?'
'She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different than mine, maybe ... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her-I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see through it no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.' (p.112) — Harper Lee

The first sentence was "This tome will endeavor to scrutinize, in quasi-inclusive breadth, the epistemology of ophthalmologically contrived appraisals of ocular systems and the subsequent and requisite exertions imperative for expugnation of injurious states," and as Violet read it out loud to her sister, both children felt the dread that comes when you begin a very boring and difficult book. — Lemony Snicket

But with the library, it's like catnip, I suppose: you begin to run in circles because there's so much to look at and read. — Ray Bradbury

When a new post-war generation has grown to puberty and to youth and to manhood and womanhood, it should read, and it should be realistically told, of the futility, the idiocy, the utter depravity of war. For that matter, this instruction could begin at the age of six with the taking of those toy guns out of those toy holsters and throwing them in the ash-cans where they belong. — Edna Ferber

To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

My books nourish my soul. When I open a cover and begin to read, I go to new places, to worlds I never knew existed. I time travel into the past and up into the distant future — Ann Hite

I remember, when we started 'Leverage,' we were all in Chicago, and I read the script for the pilot and thought, 'Boy, this is just a real interesting place to begin a character.' I had to figure out how to go about playing someone who had hit rock bottom. — Timothy Hutton

What is it, Master Calligrapher, that little girls do in the way that spiders weave?" sleeve asked primly.
The Calligrapher coughed, for his room was very dusty, and there was dust even on his eyelashes, and said: "It is right and proper," he said, "for a girl to read as many books as there are bricks in this city, and then, when she is finished, to begin to write new ones which are made out of the old ones, as this city is made of those stones. — Catherynne M Valente

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it. — Margaret Atwood

At which I was greatly lightened, and encouraged in my soul; for thus, at that very instant, it was expounded to me: Begin at the beginning of Genesis, and read to the end of the Revelations, and see if you can find, that there were ever any that trusted in the Lord, and were confounded. So coming home, I presently went to my Bible, to see if I could find that saying, not doubting but to find it presently; for it was so fresh, and with such strength and comfort on my spirit, that it was as if it talked with me. 64. Well, I looked, but I found it not; — John Bunyan

I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment. — John Newton

Whether white, black, Asian, or Latino, American students rarely arrive at college as habitual readers, which means that few of them have more than a nominal connection to the past. It is absurd to speak, as does the academic left, of classic Western texts dominating and silencing everyone but a ruling elite or white males. The vast majority of white students do not know the intellectual tradition that is allegedly theirs any better than black or brown ones do. They have not read its books, and when they do read them, they may respond well, but they will not respond in the way that the academic left supposes. For there is only one 'hegemonic discourse' in the lives of American undergraduates, and that is the mass media. Most high schools can't begin to compete against a torrent of imagery and sound that makes every moment but the present seem quaint, bloodless, or dead. — David Denby

It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this [Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species'] and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well. — Douglas Adams

I had seen that once before, bleeding water. A little baby I worked on as a resident in training. That poor kid had been shot as well - his father had blasted away the top of his head with a shotgun - and we couldn't begin to stop the bloodletting in that case. "Looking pretty thin down here," I hollered when the stuff coming out his wounds was no more than pink salt water. That baby's heart stopped, started, stopped and started a dozen times before it finally gave up the ghost and we pronounced him. I could have read a newspaper through the watery stuff coming out his veins by then. — Edison McDaniels

You cannot even begin to understand contemporary African politics if you have not read this fascinating book — Bob Geldof

Begin to read, write and think. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I shared a bed with my sister, Grace, until I was seventeen years old. She was afraid to sleep alone and would begin asking me around 5:00 P.M. every day whether she could sleep with me. I put on a big show of saying no, taking pleasure in watching her beg and sulk, but eventually I always relented. Her sticky, muscly little body thrashed beside me every night as I read Anne Sexton, watched reruns of SNL, sometimes even as I slipped my hand into my underwear to figure some stuff out. — Lena Dunham

We got through all of Genesis and part of Exodus before I left. One of the main things I was taught from this was not to begin a sentence with And. I pointed out that most sentences in the Bible began with And, but I was told that English had changed since the time of King James. In that case, I argued, why make us read the Bible? But it was in vain. Robert Graves was very keen on the symbolism and mysticism in the Bible at that time. — Stephen Hawking

The Women in Black are Israeli Jews who meet wall in Jerusalem. They meet every Friday, the Sabbath evening, and pray. They begin by singing Kaddish for all the Israelis killed in the fighting in Israel that week. When they are finished, they pause and read all the names. Then, they turn again to face the wall and sing Kaddish again, this time for all of Palestinians killed in the fighting that week, and they turn when they are finished and once again recite the litany of the names of those killed. — Megan McKenna

How to read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do. — Harold Bloom

Read Mann's notes, which contain precise accounts of cholera and its symptoms, and observe how careful he is throughout his fiction in getting medical details straight - then you might begin to wonder whether cholera is the only candidate for the cause of Aschenbach's death. What results from this, I think, is a deeper appreciation of Mann's brilliance in keeping so many possibilities in play. The ambiguity is even more artful than people have realized. — Philip Kitcher

I could take a walk with my wife and try
to explain the ghosts I can't stop speaking to.
Or I could read all those books piling up
about the beginning of the end of understanding ...
Meanwhile, it's such a beautiful morning,
the changing colors, the hypnotic light.
I could sit by the window watching the leaves,
which seem to know exactly how to fall
from one moment to the next. Or I could lose
everything and have to begin over again. — Philip Schultz

Someone rightly said a closed mouth is a closed destiny! We must begin to speak out the word of God over our lives, family and circumstances. It is not enough to know the word, read it, and practice it. When it comes to praying God's word over our lives, we must open our mouth and SPEAK! Even God, our Maker, and the Creator of ALL things spoke things into existence. In Genesis 1, we see several accounts of God making declarations, commanding, speaking. "God said..." is a statement that is so common all through the bible; particularly in the story of creation. So, what do you desire to create — Rali Macaulay

Most people do not realize that the Apostle John was actually using terminology familiar to 1st Century Jewish people. It was familiar, because it was language read in the Targums in the Synagogue every week. What John was doing by stating his first sentence in the manner was very similar to the technique used at the time (and today in some Orthodox Jewish sects), whereby one person would recite the first verse of a Psalm, and the students (or members of the Synagogue), would begin to recite the rest of the Psalm. Jesus did this as is recorded in the New Testament. The hearers should have understood to recite the entirety of Psalm 22 in response, "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" Matthew 27:46 — Tov Rose

We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is. Someone - our parents, teachers, analysts - hypnotizes us to "see" the world and construe it in the "right" way. These others label the world, attach names and give voices to the beings and events in it, so that thereafter, we cannot read the world in any other language or hear it saying other things to us. The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that we can become undeaf, unblind, and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to us in new voices and write all its possible meaning in the new book of our existence. — Sidney M. Jourard

When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts. — Anzia Yezierska

Begin to read a book that will help you move toward your dream. — Les Brown

Come back to the Bible. Begin to read it. Study it and God will speak to you and change you - and through you perhaps history can be changed. — Billy Graham

For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any books however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly. — John Calvin

We are born alone, and all die alone, too. I read that somewhere, in some book. After Oren died I used to lie awake and think about that: think about the universe sucking up hope for us, soul by soul, until we're so dry we all starve, all at once, and the sky takes our bones and crushes them into mulch and starts over again. So goes the cycle. So go the millions and billions of things we can't ever begin to control. — Kate Ellison

A truce between Israel and Palestine? Imagine walking into a doctor's office. You sit down, pick up a magazine, and begin to read. A few minutes later, a man walks in, the man who killed your wife, the man whose son you murdered. He sits down, picks up a magazine, and begins to read.
A two-state solution to the problem between Israel and Palestine? Imagine walking into a doctor's office. You sit down, pick up a magazine, and begin to read. Next door, a man walks into the restaurant, the man who killed your wife, the man whose son you murdered. He sits down at a table, orders a meal, and begins to eat.
In either case, there is an intolerable tension that has resisted resolution by diplomacy, combat, sanctions, or segregation. Forgiveness is the only reasonable solution. — Ron Brackin

There is, on the whole, nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school. To begin with, it is a prison. But in some respects more cruel than a prison. In a prison, for instance, you are not forced to read books written by the warders and the governor ... In the prison you are not forced to sit listening to turnkeys discoursing without charm or interest on subjects that they don't understand and don't care about, and therefore incapable of making you understand or care about. In a prison they may torture your body; but they do not torture your brains. — George Bernard Shaw

He winced when he stood
lumbago, he explained, from turning one too many sentences arounder that day
and said that he still his evening's reading. He did not do justice to a writer unless he read him on consecutive days and for no less than three hours at a sitting. Otherwise, despite his note taking and underlining, he lost touch with a book's inner life and might as well not have begun. Sometimes, when he unavoidably had to miss a day, he would go back and begin all over again, rather than be nagged by his sense that he was wronginger a serious author. — Philip Roth

Begin to read and mediate on the word of God. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When you begin to read or listen to the Holy Scriptures, pray to God thus: "Lord Jesus Christ, open the ears and eyes of my heart so that I may hear Thy words and understand them, and may fulfill Thy will." Always pray to God like this, that He might illumine your mind and open to you the power of His words. Many, having trusted in their own reason, have turned away into deception. — Ephrem The Syrian

Jessie was trying to read science fiction but nothing she read so far could begin to match ordinary life on this planet, she said, for sheer unimaginableness. — Don DeLillo

Often I'm struck by something that I read; then I go and research it a little more, especially if I begin a poem, and I find out that I need to know more. Then I usually get intrigued and excited about whatever it is I'm writing about. — Pattiann Rogers

I don't believe in writing at night because it comes too easily. When I read it in the morning it's not good. I need daylight to begin. Between nine and ten o'clock I have a long breakfast with reading and music. — Gunter Grass

I have heard people say that the short story was one of the most difficult literary forms, and I've always tried to decide why people feel this way about what seems to me to be one of the most natural and fundamental ways of human expression. After all, you begin to hear and tell stories when you're a child, and there doesn't seem to be anything very complicated about it. I suspect that most of you have been telling stories all your lives, and yet here you sit - come to find out how to do it.
Then last week, after I had written down some of these serene thoughts to use here today, my calm was shattered when I was sent seven of your manuscripts to read.
After this experience, I found myself ready to admit, if not that the short story is one of the most difficult literary forms, at least that it is more difficult for some than for others. — Flannery O'Connor

Let me begin with a heartfelt confession.
I admit it. I am a biblioholic, one who loves books and whose life would seem incomplete without them. I am an addict, with a compulsive need to stop by nearly any bookstore I pass in order to get my fix. Books are an essential part of my life, the place where I have spent many unforgettable moments. For me, reading is one of the most enjoyable ways to pass a rainy afternoon or a leisurely summer day. I crave the knowledge and insights that truly great books bring into my life and can spend transported hours scouring used book stores for volumes which "I simply must have". I love the smell and feel of well-loved books and the look of a bookcase full of books waiting to be taken down and read. — Terry W. Glaspey

If you have feelings about reading, you feel the rhythm of prose or of a poem like music. It awakens something in your soul and then of course you study, read, you grow up and you begin to understand the message and that is the first step towards understanding life. — Maria Kodama

Now if the study of the Scriptures be necessary to our happiness at any time in our life, the sooner we begin to read them, the more we shall be attached to them ... — Benjamin Rush

What can it matter to me,' he says, 'whether people read my books or not? It may matter to (the critics)
but I have too much money to want more, and if the books have any stuff in them it will work by and by. I do not know nor greatly care whether they are good or not. What opinion can any sane man form about his own work? Some people must write stupid books just as there must be junior ops and third-class poll men. Why should I complain of being among the mediocrities? If a man is not absolutely below mediocrity let him be thankful
besides, the books will have to stand by themselves some day, so the sooner they begin the better. — Samuel Butler

Keep your whole being on the thing you are turning into words. The minute you flinch, and take your mind off this thing, and begin to look at the words and worry about them... Then your worry goes into them and they set about killing each other. So you keep going as long as you can, then look back and see what you have written. After a bit of practice and after telling yourself you are going to use any old word that comes into your head so long as it seems right, you will surprise yourself. You will read back through what you have written and you will get a shock. You will have captured a spirit, a creature. — Ted Hughes