Readers of novels. I sometimes think that I could, if put to it, pick the real readers of novels out of a crowd. They have a strangeness about the eye, almost as if there were an extra bit of lens on the cornea…. The glance of a reader shows me a soul with a different orientation to time… – Sven Birkerts (b.1951), “Notes from a Confession,” The Agni Review, No.22 (1985)

Christie loved books… This amusement lightened many heavy hours, peopled the silent house with troops of friends, and, for a time, was the joy of her life. – Louisa May Alcott, “Servant,” Work: A Story of Experience, 1873

There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marxs Capital. – W. E. B. Du Bois