“Some people read to confirm their own hopelessness. Others read to be rescued from it.”

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

“Reading has always been the largest and most irreplaceable pleasure for Vincent; reading about other people's successes and failures, joys and sufferings seemed to bury his own failures.”

“Other people's history can be read comfortably, the way a novel can be read comfortably. By my own history? I'm on the run from my own history, and catching my breath in the present. Escapist. But the merciless present pushes us back again toward our history. The mind keeps talking.”

“Some of the most unkind,judgmental people I've ever known go to church every Sunday and read the Bible.I don't know how some people are able todisassociate their own cruelty and shortcomings from their religious obligations and convictions, but many are able to do that.”

“Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don't read the lines.”