Books are slow. They require time; they are written slowly, published slowly, and read slowly.

Maturity and experience shouldn't stop one from craving silly things like sliding down bannisters.

Books were in the world; the world was in books.

Books connect us with others, but that connection is created in solitude, one reader in one chair hearing one writer, what John Irving refers to as one genius speaking to another.

The bookstore and the coffeehouse are natural allies; Neither has a time limit, slowness is encouraged.

Rereading a favorite novel first read 5, 10, or 20 years ago, is a measure of our travel, how far we've come; it's a way of visiting an earlier self.

If you read one book a week, starting at the age of 5, and live to be 80, you will have read a grand total of 3,900 books, a little over one-tenth of 1 percent of the books currently in print.