“I opened a book and in I strode.Now nobody can find me.I've left my chair, my house, my road,My town and my world behind me.I'm wearing the cloak, I've slipped on the ring,I've swallowed the magic potion.I've fought with a dragon, dined with a kingAnd dived in a bottomless ocean.I opened a book and made some friends.I shared their tears and laughterAnd followed their road with its bumps and bendsTo the happily ever after.I finished my book and out I came.The cloak can no longer hide me.My chair and my house are just the same,But I have a book inside me.”

“Books help to form us. If you cut me open, you will find volume after volume, page after page, the contents of every one I have ever read, somehow transmuted and transformed into me. Alice in Wonderland. the Magic Faraway Tree. The Hound of the Baskervilles. The Book of Job. Bleak House. Wuthering Heights. The Complete Poems of W H Auden. The Tale of Mr Tod. Howard''s End. What a strange person I must be. But if the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books, all the same books and only the same books as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA.”

“But I do go in for books. I love to own books. Though I read few books twice, I have filled every shelf in my house with books, have had more shelves made and filled those too. My books surround me like a cocoon. When I run my finger along the backs of my books they feel like the ribcage of an old familiar lover. Visit my shelves and you will learn much about me.”

“Well — when I write my book, and tell the tale Of my adventures — all these little stars That shake out of my cloak — I must save those To use for asterisks...”

“Well when I write my book, and tell the tale of my adventures--all these little stars that shake out of my cloak-- I must save those to use for asterisks!”

“How happily, said Austerlitz, have I sat over a book in the deepening twilight until I could no longer make out the words and my mind began to wander, and how secure have I felt seated at the desk in my house in the dark night, just watching the tip of my pencil in the lamplight following its shadow, as if of its own accord and with perfect fidelity, while that shadow moved regularly from left to right, line by line, over the ruled paper.”