‘A torch in your hands’: 19 quotes on books and reading to celebrate World Book Day

Most of us who love to write grew up as voracious readers, with a deep and visceral love for books. I know I did, anyway. It is cliche, and yet true, for me to say that it is books that made me both the writer and the person I am today.

When I think of my childhood, I picture myself on my stomach in bed, eating naatjies and tearing through book after book. In my adolescence, and years as a young adult, books have helped not only to shape me but to teach and guide me. They have been my solace and my guide.

(An aside – if you’re anything like me, the demands and strains of adulthood and real life mean that you get far less time for reading now than you did in your childhood. I know that I amass far more books than I get around to actually reading. I often feel very guilty for this, making vague promises (that often get broken within the week!) that I will not buy, or loan, any more books until I’ve read all the ones I own.

I like to remember something I read once on artist Austin Kleon’s blog: “Gigantic book piles aren’t a sign that you’re doing it wrong. They’re a sign that you’re doing it wrong.” Also, I highly recommend this essay, published in the Guardian, by Anakana Schofield. )

To celebrate, because it certainly deserves celebrating, World Book Day, we’ve compiled eighteen of our favourite quotes from writers, artists, and thinkers on books and reading.

“You must write, and read, as though your life depended on it.” – Adrienne Rich

‘Read, read, read. I’m not sure you can be a good writer without being a good reader.” – Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Americanah

 “Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.” – bell hooks

“A writer’s growth is often a slog, the slow burn of reading and trying and failing when, finally, by some luck or mercy, the book you’re reading turns into a torch in your hands.” – Ocean Vuong, author of On earth we’re briefly gorgeous

“Writing and reading […] deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: They feed the soul.” – Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird

“As writers […], we are overwhelmingly engaged with books and writers and our sense of self bleeds into this.” – Suzanne Scanlon

“A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It’s a creator of inwardness.” – Susan Sontag

“The book to read is not the one that thinks for you, but the one that makes you think.” – Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird

“Every morning, I have woken up knowing that I will never run out of books to read. That has been my life.” – Kenzaburo Oe, author of Teach us to outgrow our madness

“Reading is an inner event. This is its abiding mystery.” – Ben Okri

“There are very books I read that I don’t feel feel contributed to me either as a person or as a writer, and sometimes when I’m lucky, both.” – Yewande Omotoso, author of Bom Boy and The Woman Next Door

“I have no creative writing training other than being an obsessive reader. I really had no clue when I started. The only thing I had was burning desire.” – Charlotte Otter, author of Balthasar’s Gift

“I am a writer of enormous doubts and fears. To save myself I keep my desk stocked with books I love and trust in.” – Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under

“Books are more than objects. They are filled with ideas, stories, versions of ourselves, memories. Bookshelves are like your wardrobe: They send a message.” – Amanda Long

“To create one book, you have to read hundreds.” – Fred Khumalo, author of The Longest March, Franschoek Literary Festival 2019

“I read to be moved in every sense of the word. To go to places I haven’t been and to glimpse worlds I couldn’t otherwise see, including worlds deep within myself.” – John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars

“What you read is as important as what you write.” – Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaids Tale

“Books have more than changed my life – they have made it possible.” – Myra Cohn Livingston

“Literature is an engagement with our deepest selves, a shaping of a language to talk about who we are.” – Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges are not the only fruit

Aimee-Claire Smith lives in Cape Town, where she is studying English Literature and working on her first novel. She likes coffee and cats. You can follow her on twitter or Instagram: @aiimeeclaiire