“The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. Style and personality are irrelevant. They can be formal or casual. They can be tall or short or fat or thin. They can obey the rules or break them. But they need to contain a charge. A live current, which shocks and illuminates.”

Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

“Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.”

“Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.”

“Writing eases my suffering…When you use words, you're able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.”

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or a duty. It should be offered as a gift.”

“Writing is really a way of thinking—not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.”

“If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.”

“The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.”

Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work.

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.”

Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.

“Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”

“Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.”

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

RALPH ELLISON

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