Readers, Censors Know, Are Defined By The

I Wanted To Live Among Books.

I Can Understand That There Are Those Who Can Think And Imagine The World Without Words, But I Think That Once You Find The Words That Name Your Experience, Then Suddenly That Experience Becomes Grounded, And You Can Use It And You Can Try To Understand It.

As Centuries Of Dictators Have Known, An Illiterate Crowd Is The Easiest To Rule; Since The Craft Of Reading Cannot Be Untaught Once It Has Been Acquired, The Second-best Recourse Is To Limit Its Scope.

Reading In Bed Is A Self-centered Act, Immobile, Free From Ordinary Social Conventions, Invisible To The World, And One That, Because It Takes Place Between The Sheets, In The Realm Of Lust And Sinful Idleness, Has Something Of The Thrill Of Things Forbidden.

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.