If The Book Is Second-hand, I Leave

At One Magical Instant In Your Early Childhood, The Page Of A Book—that String Of Confused, Alien Ciphers—shivered Into Meaning. Words Spoke To You, Gave Up Their Secrets; At That Moment, Whole Universes Opened. You Became, Irrevocably, A Reader.

My Books Hold Between Their Covers Every Story I've Ever Known And Still Remember, Or Have Now Forgotten, Or May One Day Read; They Fill The Space Around Me With Ancient And New Voices.

I Don't Remember Ever Feeling Lonely; In Fact, On The Rare Occasions When I Met Other Children I Found Their Games And Their Talk Far Less Interesting Than The Adventures And Dialogues I Read In My Books.

If The Book Is Second-hand, I Leave All Its Markings Intact, The Spoor Of Previous Readers, Fellow-travellers Who Have Recorded Their Passage By Means Of Scribbled Comments, A Name On The Fly-leaf, A Bus Ticket To Mark A Certain Page.

In The Dark, With The Windows Lit And The Rows Of Books Glittering, The Library Is A Closed Space, A Universe Of Self-serving Rules That Pretend To Replace Or Translate Those Of The Shapeless Universe Beyond.