“So I had nothing to distract me from my books and their other worlds that swallowed me whole, from Narnia to the Wisconsin woods, from a small town in Sweden to the red earth of Prince Edward Island. Nothing and no one interested me as much as my books.”

“When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.”

“There was nothing to see, nothing to distract me from succumbing to my fears, and the longer I kept my eyes shut, the more terribly I saw my fears wanted me to see.”

“I dare say, my remark came from the professional feeling of there being nothing like leather.[Mr. Hale--about books; reminding me of my statement that "there is nothing like holding a real book in your hands"]”

“My illusions about the world caused me to think that in order to benefit by my reading I ought to possess all the knowledge the book presupposed. I was very far indeed from imagining that often the author did not possess it himself, but had extracted it from other books, as and when he needed it. This foolish conviction forced me to stop every moment, and to rush incessantly from one book to another; sometimes before coming to the tenth page of the one I was trying to read I should, by this extravagant method, have had to run through whole libraries. Nevertheless I stuck to it so persistently that I wasted infinite time, and my head became so confused that I could hardly see or take in anything.”

“When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts,nothing helps me so much as running to my books.They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.”