A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a chil… - James Branch Cabell

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A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book "means" thereafter, perforce, — both grammatically and actually, — whatever meaning this or that reader gets out of it.