Readers may be divided into four classes:

1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
4) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers. - Harry S. Truman

Nothing was truly unbearable if you had something to read. - Jincy Willett, The Writing Class

The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,'The medicines of the soul. - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

He that loves reading has everything within his reach. - William Godwin

Books are like truth serum-- if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real. -Rodman Philbrick, Freak the Mighty

That's what this country needs -- more books! - Christopher Morley

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose. - Margaret Atwood

Reading gives one something to think about other than one's self. - Tom Bissell

We become the books we read. - Matthew Kelly

A Book

“Now” - said a good book unto me -
“Open my pages and you shall see
Jewels of wisdom and treasures fine,
Gold and silver in every line,
And you may claim them if you but will
Open my pages and take your fill.

“Open my pages and run them o’er,
Take what you choose of my golden store.
Be you greedy, I shall not care -
All that you seize I shall gladly spare;
There is never a lock on my treasure doors,
Come - here are my jewels, make them yours!

“I am just a book on your mantel shelf,
But I can be part of your living self;
If only you’ll travel my pages through,
Then I will travel the world with you.
As two wines blended make better wine,
Blend your mind with these truths of mine.

“I’ll make you fitter to talk with men,
I’ll touch with silver the lines you pen,
I’ll lead you nearer the truth you seek,
I’ll strengthen you when your faith grows weak -
This place on your shelf is a prison cell,
Let me come into your mind to dwell!” 

-Edgar A. Guest, Collected Verse

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare. - Harriet Martineau

When you sell a man a book you don't sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life.” - Christopher Morley

You will find most books worth reading are worth reading twice. - jkohn Lothrop Motley

Books are both our luxuries and our daily bread. - Henry Stevens

Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you. - Loiuis L'Amour, Matagorda/The First Fast Draw

The importance of reading, for me, is that it allows you to dream. Reading not only educates, but is relaxing and allows you to feed your imagination - creating beautiful pictures from carefully chosen words. - Eric Ripert.