If people don't read, that's their choice; a lifelong book habit may itself be some sort of affliction.
Penelope Livelythe days of our lives vanish utterly, more insubstantial than if they had been invented. Fiction can seem more enduring than reality.
Penelope LivelyI have long been interested in landscape history, and when younger and more robust I used to do much tramping of the English landscape in search of ancient field systems, drove roads, indications of prehistoric settlement. Towns and cities, too, which always retain the ghost of their earlier incarnations beneath today's concrete and glass.
Penelope Lively