Quote

Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own.

Reading is a technology for perspective-taking. When someone else's thoughts are in your head, you are observing the world from that person's vantage point.

Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.

Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while.

Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we're someone else, disrupting the delusion that we're permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we're saved!) other people are real again, and we're fond of them.

There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Reading is like the sex act - done privately, and often in bed.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.