“She always carried a book, though, in case she needed to read a few pages to avoid unwanted conversation.”

“She read books quickly and compulsively, paperback after paperback, as if she might drift away without the anchor of the printed page.”

“She read and read and read, but she was stuffing herself with the letters on the page like an unhappy child stuffing itself with chocolate. They didn’t taste bad, but she was still unhappy.”

“The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages.”

“When she wanted to escape her life, she read books”

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

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

“(Camille Keaton) was very nice, but I remember, when we talked to each other, she behaved like a verginella, a little virgin, you know, always avoiding sex in conversation. She did sex movies, you say?”

“The listeners who buy books after a reading multiply that reading; the author who realizes that he or she may be writing on a blank page but is at least not speaking to a blank wall may be encouraged by the experience, and write more.”

“She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.”