“Well-read people are less likely to be evil.”

“I know that having a good vocabulary doesn't guarantee that I'm a good person, but it does mean I've read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil.”

“Xenial' is a word which refers to the giving of gifts to strangers. . . . I know that having a good vocabulary doesn't guarantee that I'm a good person. . . . But it does mean I've read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil.”

“If you feel . . . that well-read people are less likely to be evil, and a world full of people sitting quietly with good books in their hands is preferable to world filled with schisms and sirens and other noisy and troublesome things, then every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, 'The world is quiet here,' as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good.”

“Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness.”

“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read.”

“It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.”