“a book is a box of words until you open it.”

“It seems to me that all the things we keep in sealed boxes are both alive and dead until we open the box, that the unobserved is both there and not.”

“Until you opened it, the book was nothing that an untrained eye would look twice at.”

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”

“Because there is a belief that once you begin to open books, you will become a better person. It is Pandora's box, but in a good way. You are inching toward the promised land, page by page.”

“If Mom was feeling ambitious, she scribbled a small list of items beneath the word, but seeing as her handwriting is virtually illegible, we won’t know what’s in each box until we actually open it. Like Christmas. Except we already own everything.”