When I'm tired and therefore indecisive, it can take half an hour to choose the book I am going to have with me while I brush my teeth.
Francis SpuffordWhat follows is more about books than it is about me, but nonetheless it is my inward autobiography, for the words we take into ourselves help to shape us.
Francis SpuffordIf your memory was OK you could descend upon on a bookshop – a big enough one so that the staff wouldn’t hassle a browser – and steal the contents of books by reading them. I drank down 1984 while loitering in the 'O' section of the giant Heffers store in Cambridge. When I was full I carried the slopping vessel of my attention carefully out of the shop.
Francis Spufford