“Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them.”

“What on earth have you packed in here? Bricks?" asked Mo as he carried Meggie's book-box out of the house.You're the one who says books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them," said Meggie.”

“Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there's a whole world that goes on - developing and changing like our own world.”

“She is a real bookworm. I think she lives on print. Her whole house is full of books - looks as if she likes them better than human company.”

“I pledge to set out to live a thousand lives between printed pages.I pledge to use books as doors to other minds, old and young, girl and boy, man and animal.I pledge to use books to open windows to a thousand different worlds and to the thousand different faces of my own world.I pledge to use books to make my universe spread much wider than the world I live in every day.I pledge to treat my books like friends, visiting them all from time to time and keeping them close.”

“Perhaps there's another, much larger story behind the printed one, a story that changes just as our own world does. And the letters on the page tell us only as much as we'd see peering through a keyhole. Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there's a whole world that goes on - developing and changing like our own world.”

“Because by now Elinor had understood this, too: A longing for books was nothing compared with what you could feel for human beings. The books told you about that feeling. The books spoke of love, and it was wonderful to listen to them, but they were no substitute for love itself. They couldn't kiss her like Meggie, they couldn't hug her like Resa, they couldn't laugh like Mortimer. Poor books, poor Elinor.”