“Let's face it, if there were 10 people like me in the world, we wouldn't have time to read each other's books.”

“If many great books seem unreadable and unintelligible … it may be because we have not for a long time learned to read by reading them. Great books teach people not only how to read them, but how to read all other books.”

“It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.”

“Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?”

“There are times when the human face and body can express the yearning of the heart so accurately that you can, as they say, read them like a book. Do not abandon me.”

“If young people don’t like reading, let’s not blame television or the modern world or school. Or rather, blame them all, but only after asking what we have done to that ideal reader since the days when we played at being both storyteller and book.”

“In my opinion, people in our society are becoming like clones. Children are not reading books, and they are not learning by doing. They're just sitting and watching each other be pretty. Like my vases.”

“It is claimed that God wrote a book called the Bible, and it is generally admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand. As long as the church had all the copies of this book, and the people were not allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in the world; but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to differ as to its meaning. A few were independent and brave enough to give the world their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these men the church used all her power. Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in the work of enslaving the human mind. For ages they were rivals in the infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people.”

“My greatest wish -- other than salvation -- was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time.”

“Dolphins read each other’s emotions by sonar and it’s the inside of the body, the configuration of the viscera, that lets dolphins know whether the dolphin they are meeting is tense or happy. Their emotions are much more connected with the insides of each other’s bodies. We don’t have that. It’s like denying 90% of what we are physically, not knowing it.”