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Emily Dickinson said it about the printed word, but it could as easily apply to the other arts as well: There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears a human soul!

Alexander Green • Beyond Wealth

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly t

Sasha Sagan • For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World

Moodboard (Alex's version)

Galileo believed that books are our only means of having superhuman powers. For Carl Sagan, a book was “proof that humans are capable of working magic.” Proust considered the end of a book’s wisdom the beginning of our own. For Mary Oliver, books did nothing less than save her life. The social function of great literature, the poet Denise Levertov ... See more

Anaïs Nin on How Reading Awakens Us from the Slumber of Almost-Living

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I devoured the books because they were the rays of light peeking out from the doorframe, and perhaps past that door there was another world, one beyond the gripping fear that undergirded the Dream.

Ta-Nehisi Coates • Between the World and Me

But the amazing thing was when I was reading that book, I just had this epiphany. And I realized, years of experience and knowledge had gone into this little device in my hand, and I could read that in a few hours and gain the benefits of that experience and knowledge. And I thought, “That’s incredibly powerful. Why aren’t people reading books all ... See more

Evan Williams • "A Journey on the Information Highway"

Historian Barbara Tuchman on the power of books:

“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and ligh... See more