[R]eading is a pact of generosity between the author and reader. Each one trusts the other; each one counts on the other, demands of the other as much as he demands of himself…. There is then established a dialectical going-and-coming; when I read, I make demands; if my demands are met, what I am then … More Reading is a Pact of Generosity
I want to be loved. That is even the deep-lying reason why I elected to write. When I was eighteen, I read The Mill on the Floss, and I dreamed that one day I would be loved the way I loved George Eliot then. – Simone de Beauvoir
Every bibliophile knows that we can scan our shelves and get this mingling sense of memory and feelings as though we’re looking at old pictures. Pick a random book and maybe you’ll remember dogearing pages earnestly without quite knowing what was so important at the time, but still feel changed by it. Ease another out … More What Book Makes the Best Friend?
The reason to read Blake and Dickinson and Freud and Dickens is not to become more cultivated or more articulate… The best reason to read them is to see if they may know you better than you know yourself. You may find your own suppressed and rejected thoughts flowing back to you with an “alienated … More Ten Books that Formed Me
