“She would bring you some great book because she was a book matchmaker, because she loved books the way other girls loved clothes.”

“She loved books. She loved them with her senses and her intellect. They way they looked and smelled; the way they felt in her hands; the way the pages seemed to murmur as she turned them. Everything there is in the world, she thought, is in books.”

“She wondered whether the books she loved consoled her precisely because they were the manifestations of her own isolation.”

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own.”

“She loved the smell of books, the feel of books, the look of them on the shelf.”

“She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself.”