You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed.

When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements … while remaining heedless of the world’s barbarism. I don’t say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn’t notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be.

One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.

Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from our human and filial duty which was to study, pass exams, use those qualifications to find a job, and then put together a way of life unthreateningly fuller than that of our parents, who would approve, while privately comparing it to their own earlier lives, which had been simpler, and therefore superior.

If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as that.

Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.

There will always be non-readers, bad readers, lazy readers - there always were.