Analytical Reading Quotes

“Analytical reading is also active, of course. But when you read a book analytically, you put yourself in a relation to it of disciple to master. When you read syntopically, you must be the master of the situation. [How to Read a Book (1972), P. 309]”
― Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

“If you are going to answer the first two questions that should be asked of anything you read, you must, as it were, check your opinions at the door. You cannot understand a book if you refuse to hear what it is saying. [How to Read a Book (1972), P. 294]”
― Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

“The vice of "verbalism" can be defined as the bad habit of using words without regard for the thoughts they should convey and without awareness of the experiences to which they should refer. It is playing with words. As the two tests we have suggested indicate, "verbalism" is the besetting sin of those who fail to read analytically. Such readers never get beyond the words. They possess what they read as a verbal memory that they can recite emptily. (P. 127)”
― Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading