“So!' he said, at length, and it came as a complete surprise to me that fellows ever really do say 'So!'. I had always thought it was just a thing you read in books.”

“It's the first line in your book. I always thought there was a lot of truth in that. Or maybe that's what my English teacher said. I can't really remember. I read it last semester."- Your parents must be so proud you can read."- They are. They bought me a pony and everything when I did a book report on Cat in the Hat.”

“Those books of mine really got under their skin. Ironically, they thought I was inhuman because of the way I churned through library books.How do you know how to pick them? Who tells you?' Daved asked me once.I explained that there was a line. 'If you read Dostoyevsky, he mentions Pushkin, and so you go and read Pushkin and he mentions Dante, and so you go and read Dante and--'All right!'All books are in some way about other books.'I get it!”

“He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had to say.”

“I'm here," he said into her ear, as the tears came faster. "Emma, I'm here with you now. Listen to me: I will always be here."Always, she thought. He said "always," but he had forgotten to say finally. Finally you are here. Thank God, finally at last.”

“Listen," he said one afternoon in the library. "You have to read a book three times before you know it. The first time you read it for the story. The plot. The movement from scene to scene that gives the book its momentum, its rhythm. It's like riding a raft down a river. You're just paying attention to the currents. Do you understand that?""Not at all," I said."Yes, you do," he said."Okay, I do," I said. I really didn't, but Gordy believed in me. He wouldn't let me give up. The second time you read a book, you read it for its history, its knowledge of history.”