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Charles Lamb Quotes about Reading

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When I am not walking, I am reading. I cannot sit and think.

When I am not walking, I am reading. I cannot sit and think.

Charles Lamb
Reading, Thinking, Walking
Charles Lamb (1836). “Elia”, p.44

I cannot sit and think; books think for me.

Charles Lamb
Book, Reading, Thinking
Charles Lamb (1869). “The Essays of Elia and Eliana”, p.167

He has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality.

Charles Lamb
Book, Reading, Originality
Charles Lamb (1869). “The Essays of Elia and Eliana”, p.167

A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.

Charles Lamb
Dog, Book, Reading
Charles Lamb (1841). “The Essays of Elia”, p.62

There is absolutely no such thing as reading but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry arbours, but it was labor thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like so many coquets, that will have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writers digests his meditations. By the same light we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour.

Charles Lamb
Book, Reading, Jealous
Charles Lamb (1894). “The Essays of Elia and The Last Essays of Elia”, New York : Frederick A. Stokes Company

I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, these spiritual repasts-a grace before Milton-a grace before Shakespeare-a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading The Fairie Queene?

Charles Lamb
Spiritual, Book, Reading
Charles Lamb, Thomas Noon Talfourd (1838). “Essays of Elia. Rosamund Gray. Recollections of Chirst's hospital. Essays on the tragedies of Shakspeare [etc.] Letters under assumed signatures published in the Reflector. Curious fragments. Mr. H”, p.108

Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which who listen had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears.

Charles Lamb
Reading, Needs, Ears
Charles Lamb (1835). “Essays of Elia”, p.192

Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faerie Queen for a stopgap, or a volume of Bishop Andrews's Sermons?

Charles Lamb
Queens, Book, Reading

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