“There were people who read and there were the others. Whether you were the a reader or a non-reader was soon apparent. There was no greater distinction between people.”

“I am more optimistic, both about reading and about books. There will always be non-readers, bad readers, lazy readers – there always were. Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. Yet nothing can replace the exact, complicated, subtle communion between absent author and entranced, present reader.”

“The readers who commited suicide after reading 'Werther' were not ideal but merely sentimental readers.”

“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I know people who read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They get the meaning by glances. But they are bad readers because they miss the best part of what a good writer puts into his work.”

“Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.”

“Paolo and Francesca were not ideal readers since they confess to Dante that after the first kiss they read no more. Ideal readers would have kissed and then read on.”