Best 27 quotes of Daniel Pennac on MyQuotes

All it takes is one teacher - just one - to save us from ourselves and make us forget all the others.

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.

By making time to read, like making time to love, we expand our time for living.

If you`re wondering how you`ll find time, it means you don`t really want to read. Because nobody`s ever got time. Children certainly haven`t, nor have teenagers or grown-ups. Life always gets in the way. <...> Time to read is always time stolen. <...> Stolen from what? From the tyranny of living.”- p.125

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

I master my doubts now. I have fun with them, they're my travelling companions.

I've never had time to read. But no one ever kept me from finishing a novel I loved.

L’architecture est art de suggestion.

Once a book falls into our possession, it is ours, the same way children lay their claim: 'That's my book.' As if it were organically part of them. That must be why we have so much trouble returning borrowed books. It's not exactly theft (of course not, we're not thieves, what are you implying?); it's simply a slippage in ownership or, better still, a transfer of substance. That which belonged to someone else becomes mine when I look at it. And if I like what I read, naturally I'll have difficulty giving it back.

The paradoxical virtue of reading lies in distancing ourselves from the world so that we may make sense of it.

The teacher is commodified, the school is a shop, the subjects are consumer goods. To read, to think, to reflect, isn't a question of want, it's a question of need.

Time spent reading, like time spent loving, increases our lifetime.

We human beings build houses because we're alive but we write books because we're mortal. We live in groups because we're sociable but we read because we know we're alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no one's 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 we've read before we can say anything. Silence is our guarantee of intimacy. We might have finished reading but we`re still living the book.

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

You can't make someone read. Just like you can't make them fall in love, or dream.

Again, again..." really means "We must love each other, you and I, if this one story, told and retold, is all we need." Reading again isn't about repeating yourself; it's about offering fresh proof of a love that never tires.

C'est exaltant, comme d'ouvrir une cage, et c'est déprimant, comme de tirer sur le fil d'un vieux chandail.

(...) cette pensée profonde de Clara: "Il y a toutes les histoires du monde dans une langue qu'on ne connaît pas.

El humor, esa expresión irreductible de ética.

Few objects awaken as much as the book the feeling of absolute property. Fallen in our hands, the books become our slaves.

Il verbo leggere non sopporta l'imperativo.

Nechuť ke čtení je nám ještě nepochopitelnější, pokud pocházíme z generace, z doby, z prostředí či z rodiny, kde nám číst spíše zakazovali. "Přestaň už s tím čtením, zkazíš si oči!" "Jdi si radši hrát ven, je tam krásně!" "Zhasni, už je pozdě!" Ano, tenkrát bývalo na čtení vždycky ve dne příliš krásně a v noci příliš tma.

On se prépare à la jouissance du siècle, et, le moment venu, elle a un goût de Fernet Branca. Sur ce point comme sur quelques autres, Julia a raison : ne jamais investir dans la promesse du plaisir. Tout de suite ou pas du tout.

Quel che abbiamo letto di più bello lo dobbiamo quasi sempre a una persona cara. Ed è a una persona cara che subito ne parleremo. Forse proprio perché la peculiarità del sentimento, come del desiderio di leggere, è il fatto di preferire. Amare vuol dire, in ultima analisi, far dono delle nostre preferenze a coloro che preferiamo. E queste preferenze condivise popolano l'invisibile cittadella della nostra libertà. Noi siamo abitati da libri e da amici.

Sloveso číst nestrpí rozkazovací způsob. Tuto nechuť sdílí s několika dalšími: se slovesem "milovat"... nebo například "snít"...

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