Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them.

There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

those of us who read because we love it more than anything, who feel about bookstores the way some people feel about jewelers...

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

How is it that, a full two centuries after Jane Austen finished her manuscript, we come to the world of Pride and Prejudice and find ourselves transcending customs, strictures, time, mores, to arrive at a place that educates, amuses, and enthralls us? It is a miracle. We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind.