Quotes by Daniel Pennac

Lei stesso, Malaussène, lei stesso! Lidentità, cosè questo snobismo? Crede che siamo noi stessi intorno a questo tavolo? Essere se stesso, signore, significa essere il cavallo giusto, al momento giusto, sulla casa giusta della scacchiera giusta! O la regina, o lalfiere, o lultimo dei pedoni!Ma mi sento già rispondere a Julie, con un filo di voce velenosa che, appunto, non è la mia voce:-Ah, sì? Perché io non sono me stesso?

Readers Bill of Rights1. The right to not read 2. The right to skip pages 3. The right to not finish 4. The right to reread 5. The right to read anything 6. The right to escapism 7. The right to read anywhere 8. The right to browse 9. The right to read out loud 10. The right to not defend your tastes

We human beings build houses because were alive but we write books because were mortal. We live in groups because were sociable but we read because we know were alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no ones place but that no one can replace either. It offers no definitive explanation of our destiny but links us inextricably to life. Its tiny secret links remind us of how paradoxically happy we are to be alive while illuminating how tragically absurd life is.

We keep quiet about what we read. Our enjoyment of a book remains a jealously guarded secret. Perhaps because there`s no need to talk, or because it takes time to distill what weve read before we can say anything. Silence is our guarantee of intimacy. We might have finished reading but we`re still livingthe book.

When you buy a jacket, it’s important the pockets are big enough for a paperback!

Our children start out as good readers and will remain so if the adults around them nourish their enthusiasm instead of trying to prove themselves. If we stimulate their desire to learn before making them recite out loud; if we support them in their efforts instead of trying to catch them out; if we give up whole evenings instead of trying to save time; if we make the present come alive without threatening them with the future; if we refuse to turn pleasure into a chore but nurture it instead. If we do all this, we ourselves will rediscover the pleasure of giving freely-- because all cultural apprenticeship is free.

If reading isnt about communication, it is, in the end, about sharing. But a deferred and fiercely selective kind of sharing.

Time to read is always time stolen. (Like time to write, for that matter, or time to love).Stolen from what?From the tyranny of living.

We human beings build houses because were alive, but we write books because were mortal. We live in groups because were sociable, but we read because we know were alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no ones place, but that no one can replace either.

What we need to understand is that books werent written so that young people could write essays about them, but so that they could read them if they really wanted to.Knowledge, academic track record, career, and social life are one thing. Our intimacy and cultural awareness as readers are quite another.

Rather than allowing a books intelligence to speak through our mouths, we replace it with our own intelligence as we talk about it. Rather than acting as emissary for the book, we become guardians of the temple, boasting of its wonders in the very words that slam shut its doors: Reading matters! Reading matters!

Reassured, we left their bedroom without understanding-- or wanting to admit-- that what a child learns first isnt the act but the gestures that accompany the act. And although it may also help them learn, this ostentatious show of reading is primarily intended to reassure them and please us.

We see that that ritual of reading every evening at the end of the bed when they were so little--set time, set gestures-- was like a prayer.

But reading is different, reading is something you do. With TV, and cinema for that matter, everything’s handed to you on a plate, nothing has to be worked at, they just spoon-feed you. The picture, the sound, the scenery, the atmospheric music in case you haven’t understood what the director’s on about… The creaking door that tells you to be stiff. You have to imagine it all when you’re reading.

I have never experienced a sorrow that was not relieved by an hour of reading.

The question isnt whether I have time to read or not (time that nobody will ever give me, by the way), but whether Ill allow myself the pleasure of being a reader.

Reading is an act of resistance. Against what? Against all constraints.

Each country thinks its school is in a specific crisis, without ever linking the schools crisis to that of the society around it.