Sometimes it’s OK just to read whatever seems most fun. Spending half an hour reading something interesting, moving, awe-inspiring or merely amusing might be worth doing, not just to improve who you become in the future – though it might do that too – but for the sake of that very half hour of being alive.
Oliver Burkeman • Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
In general, aiming to ‘understand’ or even have concrete takeaways for what you read is getting the cart before the horse. Again, no one wakes up reading Pynchon and converting it to gold; that’s not the point. The point, if there is one, as with looking at a painting, is that you are exposing your mind to being nourished without needing to define ... See more
Blake Butler • Maximizing Time for Reading
Tolstoy expressed his exasperation at people who didn’t read deeply and regularly. “I cannot understand,” he said, “how some people can live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on earth.”
Ryan Holiday • Stillness Is the Key
He described reading a book as being “in conversation” with the author. But reading has the added benefit of allowing you to concentrate deeply, move as fast or as slowly through an argument or idea as you want, and formulate and reformulate your thoughts as you move through the text.