“Books are all the dreams we would most like to have and like dreams they have the power to change consciousness. ”

“Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other worlds. But reading is not dreaming because books, unlike dreams, are subject to our will: they envelop us in alternative realities only because we give them explicit permission to do so. Books are the dreams we would most like to have, and, like dreams, they have the power to change consciousness, turning sadness to laughter and anxious introspection to the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place.”

“Dreams spark the imagination like nothing else. We have perhaps our most creative thoughts in dreams.”

“Not the least of my many blessings is that we have only one neighbour. If you have to have neighbours at all, it is at least a mercy that there should be only one; for with people dropping in at all hours and wanting to talk to you, how are you to get on with your life, I should like to know, and read your books, and dream your dreams to your satisfaction?”

“We live in a time like dreaming.... The edges of our lives flutter and change as we watch them. Listen to the dream. ”

“why can't we be more aware and conscious of all the things we already have rather than what we would like to have?”