International Children's Book Day Quotes: 20 Sayings About Reading To Share With Lit Lovers

Shut down your laptop and pick up a novel — it's International Children's Book Day.

Held every year around fairy-tale author Hans Christian Andersen's birthday, the holiday aims to perpetuate kids' love of reading and bring awareness to related issues, according to the International Board on Books for Young People's website.

Kids can have a big impact on the publishing world: The National Education Association reports that more than half of young people say they read more than 10 books a year. The top-selling children's books of all time include "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien, "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle and "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, the Richest reported.

But the publishing world can have a big impact on kids, too. Reading for fun can even increase children's test scores.

Celebrate the academic activity Saturday by enjoying and sharing these 20 quotes about reading, collected from Goodreads and readingrockets.org:

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." — Margaret Fuller

“When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.” ― Rita Mae Brown

"There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all." — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

"A book is a gift you can open again and again." — Garrison Keillor

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” ― Oscar Wilde

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” ― Stephen King

"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him." — Maya Angelou

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.” ― Edmund Burke

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” ― Francis Bacon

“Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?” ― Christopher Paolini

“Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.” ― James Russell Lowell

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go." — Dr. Seuss

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." — Jorge Luis Borges

"I can survive well enough on my own— if given the proper reading material.” ― Sarah J. Maas

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” ― W. Somerset Maugham

"Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift." — Kate DiCamillo

“Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?” ― David Baldacci

“All I have learned, I learned from books.” ― Abraham Lincoln

“I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.” ― Gary Paulsen