"I've always loved to read. But sometimes I go for a year without reading, because I forget to"
About this Quote
Norah Jones lands a small, perfect punchline on a big cultural hypocrisy: we praise reading as virtue, then treat it like a hobby you either heroically maintain or lazily abandon. The first sentence sets up the expected identity badge - "I've always loved to read" - the kind of tasteful self-description that plays well in interviews and liner-note mythology. Then she punctures it with a confession that feels almost comic in its plainness: she can go a year without reading because she "forgets to". Not too busy, not too tired, not disillusioned. Just... forgets. The banality is the point.
The subtext is about how attention actually works. For a working musician, life is rhythmic but not necessarily spacious: touring, writing, recording, travel days, late nights. Books demand a particular kind of continuity, the sort that collapses when your schedule is chopped into irregular blocks. Saying she forgets isn’t a humblebrag about being overwhelmed; it’s an admission that desire doesn’t automatically become habit. Affection for an art form doesn’t guarantee you’ll practice it.
It also slyly rejects the cultural script that creatives must be voracious readers to be legitimate thinkers. Jones makes room for a messier truth: inspiration can come from sound, repetition, conversation, silence. Reading isn’t a moral report card; it’s one input among many, and even people who love it can lose the thread when the world gets loud.
The subtext is about how attention actually works. For a working musician, life is rhythmic but not necessarily spacious: touring, writing, recording, travel days, late nights. Books demand a particular kind of continuity, the sort that collapses when your schedule is chopped into irregular blocks. Saying she forgets isn’t a humblebrag about being overwhelmed; it’s an admission that desire doesn’t automatically become habit. Affection for an art form doesn’t guarantee you’ll practice it.
It also slyly rejects the cultural script that creatives must be voracious readers to be legitimate thinkers. Jones makes room for a messier truth: inspiration can come from sound, repetition, conversation, silence. Reading isn’t a moral report card; it’s one input among many, and even people who love it can lose the thread when the world gets loud.
Quote Details
| Topic | Book |
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