Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution — such call I good books. – Henry David Thoreau

There is reading, and there is reading. Reading as a means to an end, for information, to cultivate oneself; reading as an end in itself, a process, a compulsion. – Sven Birkerts (b.1951), “Notes from a Confession,” The Agni Review, No.22 (1985)

There is a temperate zone in the mind, between luxurious indolence and exacting work; and it is to this region, just between laziness and labor, that summer reading belongs. – Henry Ward Beecher

That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit. – Amos Bronson Alcott