The title of a book fills the place of the face in a human being. – Gustav Boehm, “A Discourse on Title Page Composition,” in The Inland Printer (Ch

There is reading, and there is reading. Reading as a means to an end, for information, to cultivate oneself; reading as an end in itself, a process, a compulsion. – Sven Birkerts (b.1951), “Notes from a Confession,” The Agni Review, No.22 (1985)

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. – Richard Steele, Tatler, 1710