Status Updates From How to Read Slowly: Reading...

"We see our interests portrayed in bold relief -- our questions asked better than we can ask them, our problems pictured better than we can picture them by ourselves, our fantasies realized beyond our fondest dreams, our fears confirmed in horrors more horrible than our nightmares, our hopes fulfilled past our ability to yearn or desire. In literature we catch reality in a mirror."

"In great literature -- poetry and fiction -- we see ourselves, our friends, our enemies, the world around us."