“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.”

“She can feel his blood, just beneath his skin; when he breathes, the air fills with smoke. He's like a dragon, ancient and fearless.”

“She would live now, not read.”

“A book, I was taught long ago in English class, is a living and breathing document that grows richer with each new reading.”

“Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read that book.”

“Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.”

“He stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would always be more than enough.”

“The world could burn around her, the cities turn to dust, the cries of a hundred thousand fill the air, and she would get up after the fire died and walk barefoot and burned over the charred soil in search of clean water, a weapon, a purpose. She would rebuild.”

“She reads a lot of books. Good things, books.”

“One reads books in order to gain the privilege of living more than one life….”