“I realized then that I didn't understand anything. I read all the books I could.”

“I never learned anything at all in school and didn't read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old.”

“As soon as I was out in the street, I realized I didn't want to be alone after all, I realized I didn't want to be anything at all.”

“She read a little of it. I give her review verbatim: "Oh, your book? It's all about those how-wid Wajahs. I didn't understand it."”

“That book taught me that by reading, I could live more intensely. It could give me back the sight I had lost. For that reason alone, a book that didn't matter to anyone changed my life.”

“But usually, I watched Linda read. I couldn't believe she'd read so much in summer! Sometimes she laughed, reading her book, and one time she even cried. I didn't know how anyone could make such a big deal about books.”

“I must lay down the law as I understand it, and as I read it in books of authority.”

“At first I was glad for the help. My freshmen English class, "Mythology and Archetypal Experience," confounded me.

I didn't understand why we couldn't just read books without forcing contorted interpretations on then”

“I'm not looking for anything. I understand now a lot of stuff about myself that I didn't understand then. It makes me realize what was going on. The senselessness of it appalls me although I'm sure not so much as those who were so close to it.”

“I was on a promotional tour in Great Britain, and I stopped in Wales. I was there for three days and I ran out of books to read. I went to a local bookstore and asked the person working there to recommend some books in English. He suggested a collection by a poet who was from the area but warned me that the book wasn’t selling very well. The poet was R. S. Thomas, and I bought everything they had. As I read him, I realized that he was the most important poet I could be reading at that point in my life.”