gaudeo

“Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.”
― A.S. Byatt, Possession

“It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

“[A]fter all, the position of a reader in a book is very like that occupied by angels in the world, when angels still had any credibility. Yours is, like theirs, a hovering, gravely attentive presence, observing everything, from whom nothing is concealed, for angels are very bright mirrors. Hearts and minds are as open as the landscape to their view, as to yours; like them you are in the fabled world invisible.”
― Jill Paton Walsh, Knowledge of Angels

“This life is slow suicide, unless you read.”
― Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny