I started reading literature at 17 or 18, and I felt this extra beat to life.

I started reading when I was about three, a little over three.

At 16, I started reading trashy stuff, anything slightly naughty and risque.

I started reading the Bible. All of a sudden the words jumped off the page and became real.

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.

A good book, he had concluded, leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul. Such books were for him rare and, as he aged, rarer. Still he searched, one more Ithaca for which he was forever bound.