Don't read books; use them.

"Read for pleasure, use for work. Since then I've rarely read a nonfiction book cover to cover, though I've used thousands of books."

"If a messy desk is a sign of a messy mind, what's an empty desk the sign of?"

"Being neat about inessentials is like attending all committees and answering all mail or, in the modern mode, reading the manual from start to finish before starting up the computer."

""To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life,' said the English critic Walter Pater a century ago. Heady stuff, but also soberly correct. Routine science is satisfactory, and pays the bills. The bureaucracies that pay us must be served. Yet we should each of us cherish our hard, gemlike flame, however small, it is our success in the scientific or teaching life."

This was Deirdre McCloskey.

HT: Environmental Economist.