“Reassured, we left their bedroom without understanding-- or wanting to admit-- that what a child learns first isn't the act but the gestures that accompany the act. And although it may also help them learn, this ostentatious show of reading is primarily intended to reassure them and please us.”

“Each country thinks its school is in a specific crisis, without ever linking the school's crisis to that of the society around it.”

“Reading is an act of resistance. Against what? Against all constraints.”

“But reading is different, reading is something you do. With TV, and cinema for that matter, everything’s handed to you on a plate, nothing has to be worked at, they just spoon-feed you. The picture, the sound, the scenery, the atmospheric music in case you haven’t understood what the director’s on about… The creaking door that tells you to be stiff. You have to imagine it all when you’re reading.”

“We human beings build houses because we're alive but we write books because we're mortal. We live in groups because we're sociable but we read because we know we're alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no one's place but that no one can replace either. It offers no definitive explanation of our destiny but links us inextricably to life. Its tiny secret links remind us of how paradoxically happy we are to be alive while illuminating how tragically absurd life is.”

“We keep quiet about what we read. Our enjoyment of a book remains a jealously guarded secret. Perhaps because there`s no need to talk, or because it takes time to distill what we've read before we can say anything. Silence is our guarantee of intimacy. We might have finished reading but we`re still livingthe book.”

“Reader's Bill of Rights1. The right to not read 2. The right to skip pages 3. The right to not finish 4. The right to reread 5. The right to read anything 6. The right to escapism 7. The right to read anywhere 8. The right to browse 9. The right to read out loud 10. The right to not defend your tastes”

“The question isn't whether I have time to read or not (time that nobody will ever give me, by the way), but whether I'll allow myself the pleasure of being a reader.”

“I have never experienced a sorrow that was not relieved by an hour of reading.”

“We see that that ritual of reading every evening at the end of the bed when they were so little--set time, set gestures-- was like a prayer.”

“Rather than allowing a book's intelligence to speak through our mouths, we replace it with our own intelligence as we talk about it. Rather than acting as emissary for the book, we become guardians of the temple, boasting of its wonders in the very words that slam shut it's doors: Reading matters! Reading matters!”