I think it is shocking that 15- and 16-year-olds leave school unable to add up and with the reading ability of a four-year-old.
It bothers me to read the comments of leaders of the Hamas and others who hate America that their goal is to have more weaponry capable of delivering all types of weapons of mass destruction.
When you read comic material and people aren't laughing how do you know they're listening.
Poetry is not the most important thing in life... I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.
The performances I enjoy are the ones that are hard to read or ambiguous or left-of-centre because it makes you look closer and that's what humans are like - quite mysterious creatures, hard to pinpoint.
If one can judge from the letters that I receive, it would seem that there are many thousands of children who would like me to speak or to read to them.
I should like these few words to be read over the grave when my body is placed in the earth; for though it is possible I may be present and conscious of what is going on, I shall not be able to communicate.
I have always loved 'Stig of the Dump.' I think reading that book made me officially realise that I was a reader.
The thing about reading is that if you are hooked, you're not going to stop just because one series is over; you're going to go and find something else.
Between rounds of speed chess I read enough of a programming manual to teach myself to write programs on the school's DEC mainframe in the language Basic.
I read the book with interest, but when Jackson was a candidate in 1828 for the Presidency, I opposed him and voted for Adams. I favored a protective tariff.
I know you can read me, and I can often hear your thoughts too. Makes for an interesting relationship, don't you think?
All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you feel that it all happened to you and after which it all belongs to you.
As is said about most writers: on the one hand all I ever did from when I was a child was read, and I was a loner, which was furthered by my parents and my upbringing.
All a writer wants is to be read, and people are so flattering and lovely. I mean, there are witches out there as well. But most are so kind.
I get ideas for my books from people I know and what happens to them, from places I've been and what happens to me, and from things I read.
Authors like reading. Go figure. So it's not surprising that we sometimes bog down in the research stage of new writing projects.
Reading is such a personal thing to me. I'd much rather give someone a gift certificate to a bookstore, and let that person choose his or her own books.
One week I was in school and the next I'm at Leavesden Studios in Dumbledore's office reading scenes with Daniel Radcliffe. Weird. And terrifying for such a huge 'Harry Potter' fan.
When I'm working on a movie, I'm in my trailer playing guitar. And then on the road, I read scripts and think of... it just keeps both fires burning. I kind of need both.
I was brought up on Dickens. I remember reading 'Bleak House' but, coming back to it, I didn't remember much about it apart from a few characters.
