“That afternoon he told me that the difference between human beings and animals was that human beings were able to dream while awake. He said the purpose of books was to permit us to exercise that f...”

“As I train myself to cast off words, as I learn to erase word-thoughts, I begin to feel a new world rising up around me, The old world of houses, rooms, trees and streets shimmers, wavers and tears...”

“I had thought that words were instruments of precision. Now I know that they devour the world, leaving nothing in its place.”

“But what struck me was the book-madness of the place--books lay scattered across the unmade bed and the top of a battered-looking desk, books stood in knee-high piles on the floor, books were cramm...”

“Art, he said, was a controlled madness...He said that books weren't made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that inserted themselves into your brain and replaced what you ...”

“After all, we were young. We were fourteen and fifteen, scornful of childhood, remote from the world of stern and ludicrous adults. We were bored, we were restless, we longed to be seized by any wh...”

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It aint no disgrace to be po...”

“Youve changed me forever. And Ill never forget you.”

“Eduardo Galeano notes that America was conquered, but not discovered, that the men who arrived with a religion to impose and dreams of gold never really knew where they were, and that this discover...”