“Readers are bullied in schoolyards and in locker-rooms as much as in government offices and prisons.”

“As readers, we have gone from learning a precious craft whose secret was held by a jealous few, to taking for granted a skin that has become subordinate to principles of mindless financial profit or mechanical efficiency, a skill for which governments care almost nothing.”

“The readers who commited suicide after reading 'Werther' were not ideal but merely sentimental readers.”

“But a reader's ambition knows no bounds.”

“Paolo and Francesca were not ideal readers since they confess to Dante that after the first kiss they read no more. Ideal readers would have kissed and then read on.”

“Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read.”

“... to lend a book is an incitement to theft."A Reader on Reading p. 281”