6 Quotes by Lucy Mangan

When I later discovered that she (illustrator Faith Jaques) was a compulsive reader who loved to be alone and kept cats because they are the only pets that allow you to be both, my adoration of Jaques and her work could only increase.

The intensity of childhod reading, the instant and complete absorption in a book - a good book, a bad book, in any kind of book - is something I would give much to recapture

This is an important step in the evolution of the bookworm. Until then, you've just been a soft larval mass of love for books and reading. Now, through repeated exposure to Other People you begin to aquire a carapace that will both protect and alienate you from them

The philosopher and psychologist Riccardo Manzotti describes the process of reading and rereading as creating both locks and keys with which to open them; it shows you an area of life you didn’t even know was there and, almost simultaneously, starts to give you the tools with which to decipher it.

Each book is a world entire. You’re going to have to take more than one pass at it.

The intensity of childhod reading, the instant and complete absorption in a book – a good book, a bad book, in any kind of book – is something I would give much to recapture.