“Novels aren’t just happy escapes; they are slivers of people’s souls, nailed to the pages, dripping ink from veins of wood pulp. Reading the right one at the right time can make all the difference.”

“I've read the last page of the Bible, it's all going to turn out all right.”

“Reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren't prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets.”

“Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”

“[L]ook at yourself right now… hoping to lose yourself—your home, your certainties, the borders and boundaries of your life—by means of a bundle of wood pulp, sewn and glued and stained with blobs of pigment and resin. People with Books.”

“This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.”

“It is one of the oddest things in the world that you can read a page or more and think of something utterly different.”

“These are all novels, all about people that never existed, the people that read them it makes them unhappy with their own lives. Makes them want to live in other ways they can never really be.”

“God leads us. God will do the right thing at the right time. And what a difference that makes.”

“If this were a novel, I'd stop reading right now. I'd throw it across the room.”