“‘Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live’ Gustave Flaubert”
“When I hold a book, I often think about how it doesn’t just consist of words, but is made up of time as well: the time it took to write, the time it takes to read. I’ve always thought of reading as multiplying time: as if my life has never really been enough for me and reading has always enhanced it. And not because it makes you cleverer or a better person; it allows you to discern the paths of life.”
“Umberto Eco once said: ‘a person who doesn’t read and dies at the age of seventy will have lived only seventy years. A person who reads will have lived for 5,000 years.”
“Reading really is, in a way, a kind of reverse immortality; it’s as if it allows us to see the entire journey which brought us to this moment, it amplifies your life, your very being.”
“So, as unbelievable as it might seem, people are scared of love, of feelings, because in that moment, when you experience such emotions you think that things can change.”
“Dostoyevsky’s Dreamer also reminds me of something Ralph Ellison said: ‘the blues … was what we had in place of freedom’. In a way books also fill the space of something we’re missing and they show us where to look in order to find it.”