Alberto Manguel Quotes

A society can exist - many do exist - without writing, but no society can exist without reading.

We read to understand, or to begin to understand. We cannot do but to read. Reading almost as much as breathing, is our essential function.

I had done this all by myself. No one had performed the magic for me. I and the shapes were alone together, revealing themselves in a silently respectful dialogue. Since I could bare lines into living reality, I was all powerful. I could read.