Inspiring reading quotes can ignite a love for books and a passion for learning in children. This article gathers 49 motivational reading quotes for kids, each encouraging exploration and discovery through literature.
These quotes, from famous authors and thinkers, highlight the joy and importance of reading. They’re ideal for creating a positive reading atmosphere at home or in the classroom. Read them together, send them via text, or print them out and display them in your home.
49 Reading Quotes for Kids
“The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.”
“Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them.”
“It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.”
“It is books that are the key to the wide world; if you can’t do anything else, read all that you can.”
“My alma mater was books, a good library … I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it, and you’re inside the mind of another person…”
“Readers are lucky – they will never be bored or lonely.”
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
“Books showed me there were possibilities in life, that there were actually people like me living in a world I could not only aspire to but attain. Reading gave me hope. For me, it was the open door.”
“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”
“Books train your imagination to think big.”
“I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”
“There is a wonder in reading Braille that the sighted will never know: to touch words and have them touch you back.”
“I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.”
“Comics are a gateway drug to literacy.”
“I read a book one day, and my whole life was changed.”
“Reading is important. Books are important. Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.)”
“I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.”
“Libraries remind us that truth isn’t about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information.”
“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination and the journey. They are home.”
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
“Once you learn to read, you will forever be free.”
“Books break the shackles of time – proof that humans can work magic.”
“Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled “This could change your life.”
“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.”
“If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books.”
“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.”
“So many books, so little time.”
“A book, too, can be a star, ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,’ a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
“When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.”
“Stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn’t be human beings at all.”
“There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read — unless it be reading while you eat.”
“I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.”
“From an early age, books were my constant companions and my local library, a place I could find a new friend on every shelf.”
“Few things leave a deeper mark on the reader than the first book that finds its way to his heart.”
“I even love the smell of books.”
“A book is the most effective weapon against intolerance and ignorance.”
“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.”
“Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait in line for Santa, or some such inconvenience.”
“Reading for me is spending time with a friend.”
“At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better. It’s an enormous force for good.”
“I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp.”
“When I was 7, my proudest possession would have been my bookshelf ’cause I had alphabetized all of the books on my bookshelf.”
“I love the printed word and have always appreciated the unique connection between author and reader.”
“Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.”
“Reading brings us unknown friends.”
Share the Words and Inspire Your Child
A love of reading can be the first step on a road of endless opportunities. By sharing these quotes, perhaps you can help your child discover the joy of books and stories and the knowledge they hold.
Print them out and display them in your home, or write them on a gift card holder wrapped around a library card. Whatever you do, share them. This may be the best thing you ever give your child.
