“Perhaps a book becomes a classic in proportion to how broadly its characters can be scavenged, how many readers find within it something they experience as desirable or even intimately necessary.”

“What The Mysteries of Udolpho suggests is how a novel, by presenting phenomena before it present resolutions, can create an on-going, perhaps spurious, but nevertheless compelling dynamic between details which can undermine the ability of form to impose its particular tyranny on the reader's experience: there is a life in the novel which comes from within.”

“I'm imagining that paper books will evolve to become something akin to candles we have them in our homes and cherish their light but don't light our homes with them. Readers of Lincoln's era would likely be surprised at how well-lit our homes are and I think it's likely that we will be surprised at how well-read future book readers will be.”

“...it is how a person goes about quenching his desires or living with them unrequited that the readers get a glimpse of his true character.”

“All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them.”

“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”