No doubt most of you think biography dull reading. You would much rather sit down with a good story. But have you ever thought what a story is? It is nothing but a bit of make-believe biography. – Burton E. Stevenson, A Guide to Biography for Young Readers: American — Me

Psychopathia librorum…. I surround myself with the printed word. – Sven Birkerts (b.1951), “Notes from a Confession,” The Agni Review, No.22 (1985)

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden