Rick

“At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader.”
― Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.”
― Judy Garland

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
― Herman Melville