“The serious reader in the age of technology is a rebel by definition: a protester without a placard, a Luddite without hammer or bludgeon. She reads on planes to picket the antiseptic nature of modern travel, on commuter trains to insist on individualism in the midst of the herd, in hotel rooms to boycott the circumstances that separate her from her usual sources of comfort and stimulation, during office breaks to escape from the banal conversation of office mates, and at home to revolt against the pervasive and mind-deadening irrelevance of television.”

“Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.”

“I carried the trace of her lips, of her breath on my skin through streets full of faceless people escaping from offices and shops.”

“It was the first time I'd been in her office without her there, intimidating me into immobility.”

“Then there was survival. There was going on, as she had always gone on, without much joy, against her will, against her instincts, without the stomach for it, but on and on and on, without relief, without release, without a hand to reach out and touch her heart. Without kindness or comfort. But on. Forced into such poverty, imprisoned in such despair, there was only one thing she was sure she could do. She could survive.”

“I have no luddite prejudice against new technology; it's just that books look as if they contain knowledge, while e-readers look as if they contain information.”