If the book is second-hand, I leave all its markings intact, the spoor of previous readers, fellow-travellers who have recorded their passage by means of scribbled comments, a name on the fly-leaf, a bus ticket to mark a certain page.

In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long.

But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence.

Not until I came to Canada did I realize that snow was a four-letter word.

If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity.

There is a line of poetry, a sentence in a fable, a word in an essay, by which my existence is justified; find that line, and immortality is assured.

Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does not contribute to the common good.