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

“I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.”

“I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea.”

“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.”

“The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop.”

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

“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.”

“All I knew was that I’d flunked the third grade twice because I couldn’t learn to read, had a terrible time all through grammar school and high school. Then after ten years of writing, I was finally able to sell my first book to a leading mass-market paperback publisher in New York.”

“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.”

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”