Boys Reading Quotes & Sayings

Let's go," I said.
"Go where?"
"On Lori's date with Parker."
Now he looked at me over the nerdy spectacles he wore for reading.
"I wasn't aware it was a double date. And you're not my type. — Jennifer Echols

I think every parent knows that, like, boys and girls are different. And we just don't take that into account in schools on those things like required reading lists. 'Cause that was my experience, say, with my son, who had to read 'Little House on the Prairie' when he was in third grade. — Jon Scieszka

If the book is good, is about something that you know, and is truly written, and reading it over you see that this is so, you can let the boys yip and the noise will have that pleasant sound coyotes make on a very cold night when they are out in the snow and you are in your own cabin that you have built or paid for with your work. — Ernest Hemingway,

(If we were caught pointing at a map with a finger, instead of a blade of grass or something sharp, we had been threatened, by the unforgettable Sgt Taff, that he would 'Rip that finger off and beat you to death with the soggy end!' It's a threat that I enjoy passing on to my boys when we are reading a map together nowadays.) — Bear Grylls

But what about high school? How do you establish reading pleasure in busy, screen-loving teenagers - and in particular, pleasure in reading serious work? Is it still possible to raise teenagers who can't live without reading something good? Or is that idea absurd? And could the struggle to create such hunger have any effect on the character of boys and girls? — David Denby

It's not macho to read? Nonsense. Reading is a stouthearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-itness. It is also, in my experience, one of the most thrilling and enduring delights of life, equal to a home run, a slamdunk, or breaking the four-minute mile. — Irving Stone

The boys still sang their horrible song about Linda. Sometimes, too, they laughed at him for being so ragged. When he tore his clothes, Linda did not know how to mend them. In the Other Place, she told him, people threw away clothes with holes in them and got new ones. "Rags, rags!" the boys used to shout at him. "But I can read," he said to himself, "and they can't. They don't even know what reading is." It was fairly easy, if he thought hard enough about the reading, to pretend that he didn't mind when they made fun of him. He asked Linda to give him the book again.
The more the boys pointed and sang, the harder he read. — Aldous Huxley

It didn't help matters that I was shy and wore glasses. I was never one to stand out in the crowd. I liked to stay in corners. And I was happiest when I was alone reading. That and the good grades I got in school had doomed any chance of being popular with my peers. So it was a foregone conclusion that boys like Hardy were never going to take notice of me. — Lisa Kleypas

Reading wasn't an attempt to educate myself. It was my chief escape from a world that, although gorgeous in landscape and rich with mountain culture, didn't provide what I needed - the promise of adventure, a life beyond the perimeter of hills. I often fantasized that I'd been adopted and had mysterious powers such as flying or teleportation. Books offered the promise of a world in which misfits like me could flourish. Within the pages of a novel, I was unafraid: of my father, of dogs, snakes, and the bully across the creek; of older boys who drove hot rods close enough to make me jump in the ditch; of armed men parked near the bootlegger. — Chris Offutt

I was only good at one thing: words. I had read more, much more, than anybody else, and I knew how words worked in the way that some boys knew how engines worked. — Jeanette Winterson

Some bitter boys reading this might accuse me of "friend-zoning," but I'd like to say that even if a girl has misinterpreted a situation that someone else thinks was obvious, she does not owe her male friends anything. — Anna Kendrick

Boys forget what their country means by just reading 'The Land of the Free' in history books. Then they get to be men. They forget even more. Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in books. — Jefferson Smith

Dr. Arnold ... the admired reformer of public schools, came across some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone reading his outburst of furious indignation against this opinion will be forced to the conclusion that he enjoyed inflicting floggings. — Bertrand Russell

And policemen. They were obliged to sneak past two en route to Kampa. Thomas was a contentedly law-abiding child, with fond feelings toward policemen. He was also afraid of them. His notion of prisons and jails had been keenly influenced by reading Dumas, and he had not the slightest doubt that little boys would, without compunction, be interred in them. He began to be sorry to have come along. He wished he had never come up with the idea of having Josef prove his mettle to the members of the Hofzinser Club. It was not that he doubted his brother's ability. This never would have occurred to him. He was just afraid: of the night, the shadows, and the darkness, of policemen, his father's temper, spiders, robbers, drunks, ladies in overcoats, and especially, this morning, of the river, darker than anything else in Prague. — Michael Chabon

But what is hard to understand is why the math and science gap launched a massive movement on behalf of girls, and yet a much larger gap in reading, writing, and school engagement created no comparable effort for boys. — Christina Hoff Sommers

So much of desire, at that age, was a willful act. Trying so hard to slur the rough, disappointing edges of boys into the shape of someone we could love. We spoke of our desperate need for them with rote and familiar words, like we were reading lines from a play. Later I would see this: how impersonal and grasping our love was, pinging around the universe, hoping for a host to give form to our wishes. — Emma Cline

The whole experience reminded me of my own 'old lady' phase that I went through in high school while I was reading Somerset Maugham ... The embroidered sweaters, the costume jewelry ... I remember genuinely WANTING to be old then, to act as if the business of my life was already all but over, and that I was preternaturally wise because of it ...
God, the stupid things you'll do to try and meet boys ... — Chris Ware

I don't care any more about the handsome wealthy boys who come gingerly into the living room to take out the girl they thought would look nice in an evening cocktail dress ... I said I wanted to go out with them to meet new people. I ask you, what logic is there in that? What guy you would like, would see the depths in a girl outwardly like all the other physical american queenies? So why go places with guys you can't talk to? You'll never meet a soul that way - - - not the sort you want to meet. Better to stay in your garret reading than to go from one party to another. Face it, kid: unless you can be yourself, you won't stay with anyone for long. You've got to be able to talk. That's tough. But spend your nights learning, so you'll have something to say. Something the "attractive intelligent man" will want to listen to. — Sylvia Plath

now,
never mind
the boy who came out of that reading room
a new man,
safe in the hope of what was to come
in the summers of his life. — Thabo Jijana

You don't respect me, George," said Mrs. Morland indignantly. "You never have. And I don't respect you. We are just friends."
"Well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign," said George Knox with a voice rather unlike his own.
"I know why you are talking like that, George," said Mrs Morland. "You've been reading Browning. But I am not your Lost Mistress."
There was a moment's silence from her slightly stunned audience.
"And I have never been anyone's mistress," the gifted writer continued. "Nobody ever asked me and I should have been furious if they had. Stoker would have given notice. And it would have been most awkward for my boys; especially the married ones. I mean, my boys wouldn't have taken much notice but my daughters-in-law, whom I am devoted to, would think it not a good thing. — Angela Thirkell

But Luke would never be friends with a girl, even if they were into the same things - like locking me in closets with brutish boys from school, or setting the books I was reading on fire. — April Genevieve Tucholke

I believe reading books is one of the best ways to gain real empathy for people different from ourselves, and helping boys develop empathy for girls is a cause worth fighting for. — Shannon Hale

Reading Gypsy Boy, I felt invited into a secret society. I've always found Gypsies mysterious and even slightly dangerous, and Mikey Walsh does an excellent job describing the cloistered lifestyle and fascinating traditions of the Romani people. Moreover, Mikey's personal story of being a misfit among misfits is both compelling and universal. I cheered for him every step of the way. — Julia Scheeres

Are we to deny our daughters the works of Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck or Shakespeare?....Where is the equality in banning girls from enjoying wonderful works of literature?....What kind of society defines suitable reading material by sex? This is indefensible censorship encouraging ignorance and bias. [About Caitlin Moran's statement.] — Diane Davies

I think as women we've always been very used to growing up reading and identifying with male protagonists, especially in fantasy. There's a saying in publishing that girls will read about boys, but boys will only read about boys, and it's important to give women strong heroines. — Cassandra Clare

She thought about Penny's stories. There was one about a man who had three wishes and married a swan. If I had three wishes, I know what I'd wish for, thought Is. I'd wish for those two boys to be found, and for us all to be back on Blackheath Edge. She thought about Penny teaching her to read. "What's the point of reading?" Is had grumbled at first. "You can allus tell me stories, that's better than reading." "I'll not always be here," Penny had said shortly. "Besides, once you can read, you can learn somebody else. Folk should teach each other what they know." "Why?" "If you don't learn anything, you don't grow. And someone's gotta learn you."
Well, thought Is, if I get outta here, I'll be able to learn some other person the best way to get free from a rolled-up rug. — Joan Aiken

What I did do a lot as a child was read, and I particularly remember reading all the 'Hardy Boys' books, a set of history books called the 'Landmark Books,' and a series of science books called the 'All About Books.' — Martin Chalfie

I went to bed without reading, instead staring out my window with the curtains drawn, wondering about boys. Why did they behave so oddly? One minute their teasing was relentless, and then bam!
they'd stun you with a thoughtful gesture. Either way, their actions made you want to cry. Maybe that was the intent. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I was reading Raymond Chandler very much with the feminist eye. In six of his seven novels, it's the woman who presents herself in a sexual way, who is the main bad person. And then you start reading more fiction, whether crime fiction or straight fiction, it's just bad girls trying to make good boys do bad things, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. The woman that thou gavest me made me do it, Adam says to God. — Sara Paretsky

It only took Alexis a day to read a five-hundred page book. Fiction stories took her to another world where she could lose herself for a while in someone else's life.
Its funny how things like loans to pay back, a broken home and family, and a future to worry about meant nothing to characters who only had to worry about things like boys, beaches and fun. — Lindsay Chamberlin

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. — Charles Dickens

I think it's so important for young readers to find a book or series that ignites their passion for reading, especially boys, whose interest in reading wanes as they grow older. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

But after all we are not children, not illiterate juvenile delinquents, not English public school boys who after a night of homosexual romps have to endure the paradox of reading the Ancients in expurgated versions. — Vladimir Nabokov

I've nothing against kids reading anything they please, but I do have a problem with pink books for girls and black books for boys. — Joanne Harris

While they read these stories, moreover - and this is a comforting thought for those who believe that the best way for anyone to become a lover of real literature is to be exposed to it early and often - boys and girls are not only gratifying their love for a
stirring tale, they are making the acquaintance of the great story-tellers of the past, taking them into their lives as companions. This early contact gives children an experience which will keep their horizon in after life from being entirely circumscribed by the mediocre and ephemeral. If a boy has sailed the wine dark Aegean, or climbed a height whence he could watch Roland's last heroic stand in the Pass of Roncevaux, some gleam remains, and there is far less likelihood that his adult reading will be entirely commonplace. — Anne Thaxter Eaton

To solve the drug problem, we have to start at the root - first grade. If a boy has all the toys in his head that reading can give him, and you hook him into science fiction, then you've got the future secured. — Ray Bradbury

Four of my children are daughters, and I've watched them devote themselves to reading books about how little girls learn to become women - how they learn to deal with boys and men, and the different hurdles females have to go over. — Robert K. Massie

Yes, she was the girl playing basketball with all the boys in the park, collecting cans by the side of the road, keeping secret pet kittens in an empty boxcar in the woods, walking alone at night through the rail yards, teaching her little sister how to kiss, reading out loud to herself, so absorbed by the story, singing sadly in the tub, building a fort from the junked cars out in the meadow, by herself in the front row at the black-and-white movies or in the alley, gazing at an eddy of cigarette stubs and trash and fall leaves, smoking her first cigarette at dusk by a pile of dead brush in the desert, then wishing at the stars
she was all of them, and she was so much more that just just her that I still didn't know. — Davy Rothbart

Cam starts laughing, "Oh, I love it when she reads." He turns to Lucy who's face is starting to contort and turn to a bright shade of red, "She reads these smutty books, like full on dirty shit, full of sex and like ... bdsm shit."
"I'm not joking boys, they're like full on pornographic. Talking about silky shafts and veiny dicks and shit," Logan is now on the ground holding his side from the pain of laughing too hard.
"Sometimes she'll be reading, then all of sudden she'll put her book down and look at me like she wants to eat me, literally eat me!" he yells, laughing harder, still swatting away her hands that are trying to shut him up, "I mean I don't mind it, not at all. It's hot as fuck. And she wants to try everything she reads in these books. Like ... everything. She learns everything from these books ... so I don't give a shit when, of how much she reads, I get rewards. — Jay McLean

It is a fact perhaps kept a little too much in the background, that mothers have a self larger than their maternity, and that when their sons have become taller than themselves, and are gone from them to college or into the world, there are wide spaces of their time which are not filled with praying for their boys, reading old letters, and envying yet blessing those who are attending to their shirt-buttons. — George Eliot

Anyone who says the Backstreet Boys can't sing is crazy. They're probably just reading some highbrow critic who hates anyone the general public embraces. I'm sorry, but those boys sing their butts off. They work hard on their choreography, and on their harmonies. Their tracks are tight and solid. Their songs are musical and memorable. — Tony Orlando

He walked there, reading in the evening and heard the cries of the boys' lines at their play, young cries in the quiet evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild. — James Joyce

As I got into my teens, I started reading better books, beginning with the Beats and then the hippie writers, people like Wallace Stegner up in Northern California, and all the political New Journalism stuff, the Boys on the Bus dudes and Ken Kesey. — Stephen Gaghan

after reading an article about Ulbrickson's nutritional regimen, and contemplating his boys' success, a horse trainer named Tom Smith would go in search of hay with a high calcium content for a racehorse named Seabiscuit. — Daniel James Brown

But of course, very few people are Dexter. This is generally a good thing, but in this case it came in handy to be me. Four months after reading a story in the paper about a missing boy, I read a similar story. The boys were around the same age; details like that always ring a small bell and send a Mister Rogers whisper trickling through my brain: Hello, neighbor. — Jeff Lindsay

Any man will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of; and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers and classbooks, and when we leave school, the Little Reading, and story books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our conversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only of pygmies and manikins. — Henry David Thoreau