AC Capehart / Graham Reading and Thinking

Created Wed, 29 Oct 2025 21:53:37 -0500 Modified Sun, 01 Mar 2026 23:12:58 -0500
Confidence: high 154 Words

You can't replace reading with other sources of information like videos, because you need to read in order to write well, and you need to write in order to think well.

Paul Graham

Watercolor illustration inspired by this quote

Reflection

This is one of those I believe, but with less credible evidence. It seems reasonable that reading and writing correlate at least moderately. (Though I observe that I could watch a lot of movies and still have no idea how to create one!) What I like about the relationship between writing and thinking is that having to produce an artifact (especially a written artifact) is that it does tend to force thinking through the details in order to be able to fully represent something. That is part of the reason that Amazon moved away from Powerpoint to the “6-pager”. So, I think the upshot here is just “writing helps thinking and reading helps writing.” So, while you may not get the same dopamine hit from a novel as you will from the next YouTube short, to the extent you want to be a better thinker, it’s a good idea to spend your time reading.