“We read to know we're not alone.”

“Always be reading something, he said. Even when we're not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.”

“That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones?”

“Nowadays I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.”

“But the first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.”

“One reads alone, even in another's presence.”

“We read many books, because we cannot know enough people.”

“You're never alone when you're reading a book.”

“Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings even by their scents alone.”

“The written word, obviously, is very inward, and when we're reading, we're thinking. It's a sort of spiritual, meditative activity. When we're looking at visual objects, I think our eyes are obviously directed outward, so there's not as much reflective time. And it's the reflectiveness and the spiritual inwardness about reading that appeals to me.”