"Rather than allowing a book's intelligence to speak through our mouths, we replace it with our own intelligence as we talk about it. Rather than acting as emissary for the book, we become guardians of..."
- Daniel Pennac
"Reassured, we left their bedroom without understanding-- or wanting to admit-- that what a child learns first isn't the act but the gestures that accompany the act. And although it may also help them ..."
"We see that that ritual of reading every evening at the end of the bed when they were so little--set time, set gestures-- was like a prayer."
"But reading is different, reading is something you do. With TV, and cinema for that matter, everything’s handed to you on a plate, nothing has to be worked at, they just spoon-feed you. The picture, t..."
"I have never experienced a sorrow that was not relieved by an hour of reading."
"The question isn't whether I have time to read or not (time that nobody will ever give me, by the way), but whether I'll allow myself the pleasure of being a reader."
"Reading is an act of resistance. Against what? Against all constraints."