“The first essential in any book is that it have something significant to say --a book that leaves the reader with bigger ideas than when he began reading - that stimulates his thinking, stretches his mind, deepens his feelings. A good book sticks to your ribs.”

“If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn.”

“Few things leave a deeper mark on the reader, than the first book that finds its way to his heart.”

“I've read Flowers in the Attic and The Other Side of Midnight and Go Ask Alice and I don't want to read any more books where the girl dies in the end.”

“I could put a book in his hands, but I couldn't take him by the ankles and dip him headfirst in another world. And for some reason, I knew even then that he needed it.”

“So here, patient listener: your soothing epilogue. Imagine him happy. Imagine him spinning in circles... Imagine his heaven, where he can float through characters and books at will. (Let's dream him up a king, a giant, a boy who can fly.) Imagine him already there, under his covers with the flashlight.”

“Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.”