“Louis said, "There ought to be a comic book about geeks."Dr. McNaughton said, "There are books about geeks."He said, "There are?"Dr. McNaughton said, "I'll read you some Faulkner sometime. I'll read you some Eudora Welty, some Flannery O'Connor. Geeks, midgets, anything your heart desires. Better than comic books."Louis looked at his father. He said, "You'll read to me? Really?”

“Despite his first, the study of English literature seemed in retrospect an absorbing parlor game, and reading books and having opinions about them, the desirable adjunct to a civilized existence. But it was not the core, whatever Dr. Leavis said in his lectures.”

“Miss Abigail, I want to be an author because writers know when a person is lonely. I mean, when Molly read me some books, those writers reached out and said, Look Gideon, we know about your loneliness and we know you're feeling downtrodden. And they said...I'll stand up for you. You're not lone anymore.”

“All Julie has to do is explain to her friends that she's using it to individually seal each item that she throws out.""Then they'd think she was a geek," I said."She will thank me later," Monk said."Why would she thank you for being considered a geek?""Don't you know anything about teenage life?" Monk said. "It's a badge of respect.""It is?""I was one," he said."You don't say.""A very special one. I was crowned King of the Geeks, not once, but every single year of high school," Monk said. "It's a record that remains unbroken in my school to this day.""Were there a lot of students who wanted to be King of the Geeks?""It's like being homecoming king, only better. You don't have to go to any dances," Monk said. "You aren't even invited.”

“She quotes Robert Louis Stevenson about how young writers must read like predators. And she says that all of us, not just writers, must read like predators. For books are food, she said, for every single one of us.”

“And tell them all about the books you've read. Better still, buy some more books and read them. That's an order. You can never read too many books.”