“The reason to read Blake and Dickinson and Freud and Dickens is not to become more cultivated or more articulate... The best reason to read them is to see if they may know you better than you know yourself. You may find your own suppressed and rejected thoughts flowing back to you with an "alienated majesty”

“Long fiction is wonderful and you can lose yourself in it as a reader and as a writer, but short stories don't allow the same kind of immersion. Often the best stories hold you back and make you witness them. This may be one of the reasons some people reject the form. That and the fact that they are harder work to read. A story will not let you get comfortable and settle in. It is like a stool that is so small that you must always be aware of sitting.”

“There are countless reasons for reading, but when you’re young and uncertain of your identity, of who you may be, one of the most compelling is the quest to discover yourself reflected in the pages of a book.”

“You don’t read, you don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like to live in different worlds, to travel on great adventures through the galaxy with people you know better than you know your own family. To live and die with them. These are my friends, my best friends in the world.”

“I am grateful for emphasis on reading the scriptures. I hope that for you this will become something far more enjoyable than a duty; that, rather, it will become a love affair with the word of God. I promise you that as you read, your minds will be enlightened and your spirits will be lifted. At first it may seem tedious, but that will change into a wondrous experience with thoughts and words of things divine. Gordon B. Hinckley”

“Is it possible that the reasons you had for making that promise to yourself don't hold true anymore? Might it be the promise to yourself that's keeping you back, more than the reasons behind the promise? And if that's the case, you mustn't think of a promise to yourself in the same way as a promise to someone else. If you're changing your mind now, that's not wrong. What would be wrong would be to deny it or run away from it. I've sat up for too many nights with you not to know you've thought it all through. You have more courage than anyone else I know. But you're more stubborn, too. It would be hard for you to admit to yourself that it's time to change your mind.”