A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.

I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel.

And he read Principles of Accounting all morning, but just to make it interesting, he put lots of dragons in it.

I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places.

He wanted to say: how could you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you could do with the peasents was to leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting for those who can't, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open.

His granny taught him to read, see. I reckon it overheated his mind.

Escapism isn't good or bad of itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to. I write from experience, since in my case I escaped to the idea that books could be really enjoyable, an aspect of reading that teachers had not hitherto suggested.

He enjoyed reading and writing. He liked words. Words didn't shout or make loud noises, which pretty much defined the rest of his family. They didn't involve getting muddy in the freezing cold. They didn't hunt inoffensive animals, either. They did what he told them to. So, he'd said, he wanted to write.

Rob turned the rustling pages and grinned.'Ach, she's writ here: "Oh, the dear Feegles ha' turned up again,"' he said. This met with general applause.'Ach, what a kind girl she is tae write that,' said Billy Bigchin. 'Can I see?'He read: "Oh dear, the Feegles have turned up again."'Ah,' he said.