Alberto Manguel Quotes

I've Never Really Understood Attachment To A Place For Reasons Of Birth. That My Mother Happened To Give Birth To Me In A Certain Place Doesn't, To My Mind, Justify Any Thankfulness Towards That Place. It Could Have Been Anywhere.

It Used To Be That Readers Were Relegated Because They Considered Themselves Far Above Society, And So The Metaphor Of The Ivory Tower Developed. Now There's Still This Idea That The Reader Doesn't Take Part In The Social Game And In Politics, The Res Publica, But For Other Reasons: He Doesn't Do It Because He's Not Making Any Money.

Digestion Of Words As Well; I Often Read Aloud To Myself In My Writing Corner In The Library, Where No One Can Hear Me, For The Sake Of Better Savouring The Text, So As To Make It All The More Mine.

Every Reader Has Found Charms By Which To Secure Possession Of A Page That, By Magic, Becomes As If Never Read Before, Fresh And Immaculate.

We Are Losing Our Common Vocabulary, Built Over Thousands Of Years To Help And Delight And Instruct Us, For The Sake Of What We Take To Be The New Technology's Virtues.

As Readers, We Have Gone From Learning A Precious Craft Whose Secret Was Held By A Jealous Few, To Taking For Granted A Skin That Has Become Subordinate To Principles Of Mindless Financial Profit Or Mechanical Efficiency, A Skill For Which Governments Care Almost Nothing.

Darkness Promotes Speech.

Not Until I Came To Canada Did I Realize That Snow Was A Four-letter Word.

I Know My Time Will Come Soon Enough, But I Will Not Dwell On It. What Is The Purpose? We Might As Well Dwell On The Work Of Our Teeth Or On The Mechanics Of Our Walk. It Is There, It Will Always Be There, And I Don't Intend To Spend My Glorious Hours Looking Over My Shoulder To See Death's Icy Face.

Our Books Will Bear Witness For Or Against Us, Our Books Reflect Who We Are And Who We Have Been, Our Books Hold The Share Of Pages Granted To Us From The Book Of Life. By The Books We Call Ours We Will Be Judged

From Fire, Water, The Passage Of Time, Neglectful Readers, And The Hand Of The Censor, Each Of My Books Has Escaped To Tell Me Its Story.

Every Text Assumes A Reader.