“And then he left, and came back, and our lives fell apart, like a well-loved book that you’dread and read again, until one night you picked it up to read yourself to sleep and the binding collapsed, sending dozens of pages spiraling toward the floor.”

“I think you can read a dozen different books and not learn a single thing about writing. Good writers don't read, they study books. They pick the plots apart and the sentences apart. And part of studying is copying. Reading is great and every writer should read, but reading alone isn't enough to learn what you need to learn...”

“Then I picked my book back up again and stroked her hair and read to the soundtrack of her breaths.”

“and he glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakened curiosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.”

“Life is too short to read books whose cleverness makes them impenetrable. A good book should keep you awake at night, flickering through pages as you promise yourself just one more chapter; they shouldn't put you to sleep as you tackle a paragraph for the fifth time.”

“If you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs.”