Don't let it worry you, not being able to speak,'Dustfinger had often told her. 'People tend not to listen anyway, right?

How fast the ears learned to tell what sounds meant, much faster than it took the eyes to decipher written words.

The world was a terrible place, cruel, pitiless, dark as a bad dream. Not a good place to live. Only in books could you find pity, comfort, happiness - and love. Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn't ask anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly.

Beauty and fear make uneasy companions

Sometimes it's a good thing we don't remember things half as well as books do.

Hey, don't take this the wrong way, but don't come back, ok?

Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?