Any book not worth rereading isn't worth reading.

I don’t reread. It nauseates me. When it’s published, it’s like a dead book—I don’t want to hear anything more about it. And, when I read it, I think it’s weird, I think it’s bad, that’s why I don’t read it. I also don’t read the translations that they do of my books, in order not to get annoyed.

The day women stop reading — that’s the day the novel dies!

It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.

It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.

. . . according to Lem's Law, 'No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets' — owing to general lack of time, the oversupply of books, and the perfection of advertising.

In 250 years, reading and writing will have turned out to be a fad.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.

Oh! journalism is unreadable, and literature is not read.

The whole world's writing novels, but nobody's reading them.

No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets.

An author that's in now might be out in ten years. And vice-versa. Who knows when the final sifting is done, in the year 2050, say, who will be read of my generation? You'd like to think you will be one. But there has to be a constant weeding that goes on. The Victorians read all kinds of writers who we don't have time for now. Who reads Thackeray? An educated person reads Dickens, or reads some Dickens. But Thackeray?

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.