A Quote by A.C. Grayling
When I was 14 a chaplain at school gave me a reading list. I read everything and I went back to him with a question: how can you really believe in this stuff?
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I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them--which would mean that I'd know what was coming up, because I'd read it.
I never stop reading. I read everything, and I read every day. If you never read anything, be curious. Curiosity is the true foundation of education, reading things that we've factually already agreed on, and I love reading books. With that said, it's more important that you ask the question 'why.'
I always say that, to me, it starts with reading. This is something I tell high school kids, college kids, people trying to get into the business, that it's just so much about reading. Read, read, read. So much of everything else falls into place when you just do a ton of reading.
I was a good boy in high school , and I read for English class, and I vaguely remember reading, as a kid, 'Choose Your Own Adventure' stuff, but I didn't really read for pleasure.
I suppose I could read more fiction, but I haven't moved in that direction. I'd like more time even though I spend six hours a day reading. People say their eyes get tired, but I've never experienced that. In college I used to read 10 hours a day. My wife says I'm obsessive compulsive. She might have a point because when I was an undergrad student we had the required reading list and the suggested reading list. I always read all the suggested reading too.
I don't believe in reading. I don't care about reading. It means nothing to me. I believe that by using your eyes and ears, you'll find everything that there is, and you don't have to read about it.
My mom used to tell me stories at night, read books to me - and I read 'em over and over and over again. And you know what I learned from that? I went back and looked at everything - Why do I like reading the same stories over and over and over again? What, was I some kind of nincompoop? No - the narrative gave me connection with my mom.
A high-ranking Syrian official in DC laughed when he heard I was reading Michel Aflaq and writing this book. He said, "Let me tell you something. There are no Baathists, no one believes this stuff, this is stuff you read in school because it's assigned to you. Maybe someone believed it, but no one really believes it." And I thought that was really interesting to hear, because the ideology of Baathism was presented so often to Americans as the core of what's wrong.
The great opposition to reading is what I allow to fill my time instead of reading. To say we have no time to read is not really true; we simply have chosen to use our time for other things, or have allowed our time to be filled to the exclusion of reading. So don't add reading to your to-do list. Just stop doing the things that keep you from doing it. But read.
When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of Midnight' by Sidney Sheldon. It was my first adult book.
I don't question things that go against what I believe very much. But boy, the stuff that I really want to believe, I really question a lot.
I don't care about people kissing my ass or telling me how great I am. I don't really give a damn. I read the bad stuff a whole lot more than I read the good stuff. I read that because there are always going to be critics who are going to say how good you aren't.
I went to so many sleepovers where these parents were reading the 'Book of Revelation' before bed and things like that. I would listen to that stuff, and I would sit there and say to myself, 'If God is so great and so good, why is there this list of rules?' Like, you go to hell if you don't believe in him and hold him up above everyone else.
On one occasion I got this really bizarre horoscope thing from someone. It was a full-on zodiac reading, charting and intersecting all this stuff. It was over 20 pages long and said we're destined to be together. That was totally bizarre. I don't really believe in that stuff anyway, although I do believe in Karma because it's already bitten me on the ass so many times.
Later, when I was at Caesar's Palace, and [Joe and Gil Cates] were trying to get me to have opening acts for the show, they gave me a list of people, and Rosie O'Donnell was one of them. I said, "I don't really need any opening acts. I have funny stuff in the show, and I do a lot of comedy and stuff."
I always thought my father [influenced me most] because he was so well read, I tried to model myself on him, but really as I go through life I realise it was my mother who gave me the most valuable instructions. I didn't understand or accept it at the time. She taught me to read and to pray - two things that have really stayed with me.
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