But if you know that something has been really vicious, you don't read it, you don't let it into your head. What's damaging is when sentences go through your head and you burn with the injustice of it.
Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.
I hope to read a Harry Potter novel soon, to see what it's all about. I admit to being annoyed that many good light fantasy writers have had trouble getting published, in England and elsewhere, when it is obvious the readers were waiting for us all along.
I've read everything that Isaac Asimov ever wrote, for a start. I'm massively into my fantasy genre, anything by R.A. Salvatore or David Gemmell. I've read every single book those writers have written.
I always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of 12.
I grew up being very interested in Greek mythology because my mum read to my sister and I.
I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures.
Unfortunately, I don't get to read nearly as much as I want because I'm always working on my own stuff, either the novels or newspaper columns.
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.'
There are people who read Tolstoy or Dostoevski who do not insist that their endings be happy or pleasant or, at least, not be depressing. But if you're writing mysteries - oh, no, you can't have an ending like that. It must be tidy.
You ask: what is the meaning or purpose of life? I can only answer with another question: do you think we are wise enough to read God's mind?
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
I really, honest to God, didn't know what to read until I was out of college and living in Boston, and someone said, 'Well, why don't you read Hemingway?' And I thought, 'OK. I guess I'll try this Hemingway fellow.'
This pilot, by far, was the best I ever read - and I hope that insults every other pilot I worked on.
When God saved me, He gave me a thirst to learn and to read and to study. I thrived in college. I got a bachelor's degree in philosophy and then went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.
I can't read, I don't know how to write, my whole life has been one big fight.
I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.
It was determined, as shown in the report of the Commission, which I can read to you, but I know you are familiar with the report. It states there was disagreement on this issue, particularly as the subject was debated, that there were different opinions about it.
My high-school papers, my college-application essays, read like Norman Mailer packed in a crunchy-peanut-butter sandwich.
To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing.
I believe if more American children read the Ten Commandments and are taught what they mean, they will predictably engage in less crime.
One of the problems you have when you read with kids is that once they like something they want you to read it a hundred times.
I read actual physical books and have thus far avoided the electronic lure.
Why on earth should I care whether people read me with their eyes or their ears?
I don't know how to read. I get all my news from Jon Stewart every day.
When the Bible was first published, bathhouses were mandatory, no one could read, and only the people in the Church could write.
I think philosophers can do things akin to theoretical scientists, in that, having read about empirical data, they too can think of what hypotheses and theories might account for that data. So there's a continuity between philosophy and science in that way.
I usually stalk fans because I think they're really funny on Twitter. They don't know it, but I'll just go through their timelines, and if something is happening in the media, I always read fan accounts instead of the news because they have all the info and make the funniest jokes about it, so that's how I get my gossip - by stalking fans.
I don't want to work just for the sake of working. Generally, if a good script comes in, I read it, and if it appeals to me, it appeals to me. And it doesn't have to be anything - it doesn't have to be the main character; it doesn't have to be a huge part.
In the Seventies, my children played in the street, read politically incorrect stories, ate home-cooked food and occasional junk and, yes, were sometimes smacked.
I always read all these books about the slaves. My mother is very educated. My father would talk to us like we were grown men. We never knew what he was talking about half the time.
There's a lot of demand to hear the new Kanye West album before it hits the streets. There's much less demand to read the new Phillip Roth novel.
Whenever I have tried to write for other people, that's when my writing has failed, when nobody wanted to read it or buy it. But it's only when I've been able to write a story that makes me excited, only then have other people wanted to read it.
I think I remember from the offset I said, 'I've visited this territory. This isn't for me.' And then I read the script and I said, 'You know, this is completely something different. This is a whole new life.'
I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I've kept that mentality. Just because there's a hurricane going on around you doesn't mean you have to open the window and look at it.
We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.
