Reading teaches us the nuances of humanity. To find the beauty of what is moral and ethical in your own actions and discover the strange subtlety of what it is to question why you should exist.

There’s so much to learn. So much to enjoy. So terribly much to be curious about. Take your life and run with it. Make a habit of being alive. This much of anything, I have learned. And am still learning.

Get someone-anyone-to read books to you. Having books read to you at any age is the supremo ultimato of living.

Why read? Because books are precious guides to our humanity—civilization’s backbone—that tenuous ridgeline that allows us to climb above the jungle and see what the horizon has to offer. Thus they represent the yearning to go beyond, to explore. Yet they are also human-sized . . .

There are hard days to live. And sometimes they will be just a few, and sometimes they will seem endless. And eventually you'll come to understand that we've all been there before - or more than likely are going there now. And maybe that idea will make it easier for you, and maybe it won't. But there will still be hard days to live, and you will still have to find your way through them.

Read what you like, not what you're told to like. That way you'll read for a lifetime.