We keep quiet about what we read. Our enjoyment of a book remains a jealously guarded secret. Perhaps because there`s no need to talk, or because it takes time to distill what we've read before we can say anything. Silence is our guarantee of intimacy. We might have finished reading but we`re still living the book.

But reading is different, reading is something you do. With TV, and cinema for that matter, everything's handed to you on a plate, nothing has to be worked at, they just spoon-feed you. The picture, the sound, the scenery, the atmospheric music in case you haven't understood what the director's on about... The creaking door that tells you to be stiff. You have to imagine it all when you're reading.

Each country thinks its school is in a specific crisis, without ever linking the school's crisis to that of the society around it.

I master my doubts now. I have fun with them, they're my travelling companions.

The teacher is commodified, the school is a shop, the subjects are consumer goods. To read, to think, to reflect, isn't a question of want, it's a question of need.

The paradoxical virtue of reading lies in distancing ourselves from the world so that we may make sense of it.

When you buy a jacket, it’s important the pockets are big enough for a paperback!