Wat a vast fertility of pleasure books hold for me! I went in and found the table laden with books. I looked in and sniffed them all. I could not resist carrying this one off and broaching it. I think I could happily live here and read forever.
The thought of these vast stacks of books would drive him mad: the more he read, the less he seemed to know — the greater the number of the books he read, the greater the immense uncountable number of those which he could never read would seem to be…. The thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever.
Books have always been my home. I ransacked the library regularly from the time we moved to the States. I read on the fire escape. I read at the dinner table. I read late into the night in my room. This unhindered foraging and feasting on books - away from controlling, condemning eyes - empowered me to identify and resist misogyny, xenophobia, shadism, and other forms of injustice.
I was incredibly depressed and I found myself avoiding doing interviews where my [20-something daughters] could hear me - or leaving books on the coffee table they could see.
Until I read Anne Frank's diary, I had found books a literal escape from what could be the harsh reality around me. After I read the diary, I had a fresh way of viewing the both literature and the world. From then on, I found I was impatient with books that were not honest or that were trivial and frivolous.
We live and breathe words. It was books that kept me from taking my own life after I thought I could never love anyone, never be loved again. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them.
As a child, I felt that books were holy objects, to be caressed, rapturously sniffed, and devotedly provided for. I gave my life to them. I still do. I continue to do what I did as a child; dream of books, make books and collect books.
The clerisy are those who read for pleasure, but not for idleness; who read for pastime but not to kill time; who love books, but do not live by books
There are a lot of people out there who will write books, in which everything turns out nicely and the bad guys lose, the good guys win, the boy gets the girl and they live happily ever after. There's a million books like that and if that's the comfort you're looking for, you should read those books and not my books because that's not the kind of book that I am interested in.
It used to take me forever to read and comprehend stuff, so I decided not to make the 'Captain Underpants' books too challenging. Don't get me wrong - the humor and ideas are often sophisticated - but the books aren't hard to read. I wanted kids who hate reading to find these books irresistible.
I couldn't read. I just scraped by. My solution back then was to read classic comic books because I could figure them out from the context of the pictures. Now I listen to books on tape.
Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.
The books could be completely worthless, and things we don't even read now could be considered the most important books.
For me, wearing a tie is a pleasure, a recherche one but a pleasure nonetheless. You could say that I'm avoiding tie avoidance. My own gorgeous collection runs into hundreds and I buy them the way I buy books - I simply can't pass a shop. I have loved them since I could spend my own money on them.
When I first learned about Abrams and saw the types of books they were making, I knew I wanted my books to be published by them. Abrams books are special-when you hold one in your hands, you have the feeling that this book needed to be made. I once heard an artist say that books are fetish objects-I think Abrams gets that, because their books demand to be treasured. So who better to give comics art its proper due? I feel privileged to have found a home with Abrams.
I think books find their way to you when you need them. Whenever I feel like I'm not going to live to read all the books I want to read, I remind myself that the important ones find their way to me.
As long as a man had the courage to reject what society told him to do, he could live life on his own terms. To what end? To be free. But free to what end? To read books, to write books, to think.