“All these are readers, and their gestures, their craft, the pleasure, the responsibility and the power they derive from reading, are common with mine. I am not alone.”

“As centuries of dictators have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule; since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it has been acquired, the second-best recourse is to limit its s...”

“However readers make a book theirs, the end is that book and reader become one. The world that is a book is devoured by a reader who is a letter in the world's text; thus a circular metaphor is cre...”

“At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a bookthat string of confused, alien ciphersshivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole unive...”

“Each book was a world unto itself, and in it I took refuge.”

“I don't remember ever feeling lonely; in fact, on the rare occasions when I met other children I found their games and their talk far less interesting than the adventures and dialogues I read in my...”

“nights and days came and passedand summer and winterand the sun and the windand the rain.and it was good to be a little islanda part of the worldand a world of its ownall surrounded by the bright b...”

“When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters a table leg breaks or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart...”

“A good friend of mine once said, "I have never met a bigot who was a reader as a child.”

“Some experiences are universal. A girl is a girl whether she lives in West Omaha or Sweet Valley. Books are often far more than books.”

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books”