Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.
After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.
The man who reads everything is like the man who eats everything: he can digest nothing, and the penalty of crowding one's mind with other men's thoughts is to have no thoughts of one's own.
I've been reading reviews of my stories for twenty-five years, and can't remember a single useful point in any of them, or the slightest good advice. The only reviewer who ever made an impression on me was Skabichevsky, who prophesied that I would die drunk in the bottom of a ditch.
Give the villagers village arithmetic, village geography, village history and the literary knowledge that they must use daily, i.e. reading and writing letters, etc.
The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.
I have to say that my kids, like every child in America, is completely absorbed with Harry Potter. And so, I have gotten sucked into it, too; I can't wait for the next one to come out. I am trying to figure out what happens with Harry and Voldemort. So we have been reading that.
People are reading more and writing more because of the internet. So the virtual world is a way for me to listen to my readers and interact with my readers. It is a way that they can voice their opinion.
Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to
make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable.
As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If
we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for
personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing
a part of our lives?
People take England on trust, and repeat that Shakespeare is the greatest of all authors. I have read him: there is nothing that compares Racine or Corneille: his plays are unreadable, pitiful.
Authors have a greater right than any copyright, though it is generally unacknowledged or disregarded. They have a right to the reader's civility. There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it, and to these the author has a claim. Yet many people think that when they buy a book they buy with it the right to abuse the author.