Of course teachers know the importance of building great literacy skills for a lifetime, but sometimes it’s hard to put into words just how important words really are. Luckily, so many teachers, authors and thinkers have expressed the joys of reading so beautifully that you can rely on a perfect quote about reading to get your point across.
Whether you’re hoping to inspire your students with a bulletin board full of reading quotes for kids or you’re looking for a few choice literacy quotes to include in your newsletters home to parents, we’ve got plenty of ideas for you. Check out our list of favorite reading quotes below — and don’t forget to bookmark it for future reference when you need a little inspiration!
10 Quotes About Reading for Kids
Here are some of our favorite quotes about reading books for kids, including a couple great Dr. Seuss quotes about reading.
- So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall. – Roald Dahl - “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” – Walt Disney
- “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” – Frederick Douglass
- “A book is a gift you can open again and again.” – Garrison Keillor
- “The things I want to know are in books. My best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I [haven’t] read.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” – Groucho Marx
- “Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.” – Dr. Seuss
- “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
- “Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket
- “Writing is thinking on paper.” – William Zinser
10 Literacy Quotes for Parents
It never hurts to remind parents how important it is to make time for reading! These quotes about teaching reading can help get the conversation started at your school.
- “Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.” – Kofi Anan
- “Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” – Emilie Buchwald
- “There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.” – Mary Ellen Chase
- “Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.” – Kate DiCamillo
- “When I say to a parent, “read to a child”, I don’t want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.” – Mem Fox
- “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” – Margaret Fuller
- “You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be—
I had a Mother who read to me.” – Strickland Gilliland - “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” – Victor Hugo
- “One of the greatest gifts adults can give—to their offspring and to their society—is to read to children.” – Carl Sagan
- “Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words!” – Betty Smith
10 Reading Quotes for Teachers
Finally, don’t forget about your colleagues — and yourself! Whenever you need a little pick-me-up to get your creative juices flowing, check out these quotes about teaching children to read. Your work is so important!
- “Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his needs, is good for him.” – Maya Angelou
- “I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” – Jorge Luis Borges
- “There is no frigate like a book, to take us lands away” – Emily Dickinson
- “So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.” – William James
- “A house without books is like a room without windows.” – Heinrich Mann
- “It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations—something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.” – Katherine Patterson
- “Wear the old coat and buy the new book.” – Austin Phelps
- “There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book.” – Frank Serafini
- “Comics are a gateway drug to literacy.” – Art Spiegelman
- “You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.” – Paul Sweeney