We can't be as good as we'd want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness?

You'll remember someone who broke your heart, and you'll think to yourself, 'Oh yes, I remember how that feels.' But you can't.

I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!

He has the personality of a child prodigy, but no discernable talent.

Several months later, and I have finally read one of the three (books), even though I wanted to read all three of them immediately. What happened in between? Other books, is what happened. Other books, other moods, other obligations, other appetites, other reading journeys.

So this is supposed to be about the how, and when, and why, and what of reading -- about the way that, when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when books don't stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you'd rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time.

I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal.