“As any reader knows, a printed page creates its own reading space, its own physical landscape in which the texture of the paper, the colour of the ink, the view of the whole ensemble acquire in the reader’s hands specific meanings that lend tone and context to the words.”

“History is not a map to be read, nor a path to be followed. It is a landscape of contours and textures, of colours and sounds.”

“but paper and ink have conjuring abilities of their own. arrangements of lines and shapes, of letters and words on a series of pages make a world we can dwell and travel in.”

“I soon discovered that one doesn't simply read Crime and Punishment or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. One reads a certain edition, a specific copy, recognizable by the roughness or the smoothness of its paper, by its scent, by a slight tear on page 72 and a coffee ring on the right-hand corner of the back cover. ”

“Print is predictable and impersonal, conveying information in a mechanical transaction with the reader’s eye.Handwriting, by contrast, resists the eye, reveals its meaning slowly, and is as intimate as skin.”

“Finally, this principle and its corollary lead to a conclusion, deduced as an imperative: that the objective of the exercise of power is to reinforce, strengthen and protect the principality, but with this last understood to mean not the objective ensemble of its subjects and territory, but rather the prince's relation with what he owns, with the territory he has inherited or acquired, and with his subjects.”