Print is the best preserving agent for thoughts and stories; it keeps them fresh for centuries.”

He never watched the news, never listened to the radio, never read a newspaper. He would have been the first to admit that he had lost touch with the world.

It had been a deliberate decision, once all the reports of incompetent state leaders, ice cap melt, and suffering refugees had begun to sadden him more than the most tragic literary family saga ever could. It had been a form of self- preservation, even though his world had shrunk as a result.

Leon was to work at the bookshop for two weeks, as was customary for most students in Germany.

“It’s important that they read, not what they read,”

the ideas found between the covers of some were worse than poison, but more often than not,

Carl Kollhoff spent a lot of time walking, and he spent as much time thinking as he did walking.

Hohenesch read only philosophical works.

Everywhere in the real world, Carl saw reflections of novels.

A pretty person who doesn’t smile looks arrogant, so she smiled

Andrea Cremmen loved novels in which the female protagonist suffered and either died or was left unhappy and alone at the end.

Carl made a point of never lying. Send a lie out into the world, and you can never retrieve

Charlie Chaplin said, ‘A day without laughter is a day wasted.’ We have so few days on this earth, we can’t afford to lose any.”

While others had house cats, Carl had a street cat.

“Frogiveness, derived from frog- I’ve- ness, denotes the path toward recognizing the innermost core of the self.

Behind the concept of frogiveness lies the hypothesis that each person has an inner frog which they must transform with love— a kiss, in the fairy tale— into a handsome prince.

Sigmund Freud’s

Mrs. Longstocking read everything, from classic adventure stories to science fiction to humor:

he constantly wore a scarf around his neck to warm his vocal cords. To protect his voice, he rarely spoke outside the cigar factory,

paper family,

books needing to be read over and over,

Carl always read until ten on the dot, then washed and went to bed.

The novelty had soon worn off when the customers had realized that, at heart, they were TV viewers, not book readers.

She still inhabited a world where rich people must be good people; otherwise they would not be rich— a perspective that would undoubtedly alter with the years.

Doctor Faustus read historical treatises, with the sole purpose of refuting them on

People who love reading deserve to have a literary name.”

I’m so old, erotic novels are Ancient Greek to me.

“Reading a lot doesn’t make you an intellectual, any more than eating a lot makes you a gourmet. I’m an egotist, reading purely for my own pleasure, out of love for good stories, not to learn something about the world.”

Thats one way to look at it. And down with that arrogance

“There’s no way to completely avoid learning.

Wonderful sentences, words forged together like exquisite gold chains,

“You just need to understand, she wants to do everything differently— better. That’s the prerogative of youth.”

While Carl knew that books could save the world, he was one of the very few who knew this was just as true of friendship albums.

there were quotes written into the shape of a heart, and others shaped to look like a church.

That is some task AI can do

Schascha didn’t understand what Carl meant. If someone asked questions, they got answers— that was then a conversation.

Everyone makes mistakes, but that doesn’t make you any less clever. In fact, it’s the only way to really become clever at all.”

feel like there are so many things that just won’t fit into my brain.”

“You need to read more. It makes the brain flexible, so that anything can fit into

It’s a mark of respect for the most powerful book in the world. A book that has sparked wars and forgiveness, great injustice and profound love.

“If you’re a character in a book, you live forever. For as long as someone reads you, you’re alive.”

“Books are much, much more dangerous than ice cream! They hurt your head. Or worse, your heart.”

“You see, there is no book that can please everyone. And if there were, it would be a bad book. You can’t be everyone’s friend, because everyone is different.

Every person needs different books. Because what one person loves with all their heart, might leave another completely cold.”

Everyone is free in their choice of books. That’s the most marvelous thing about it. So much is dictated to us in life; at least we can still choose what we

The word okay was much bigger on the inside.

floral clock

there is nothing I find more beautiful than a woman reading: when she sinks deep into a book and forgets everything around her,

Of course, anyone could simply tear a book away, but a person reading was in some special way protected, as if they were engaged in a sacred ritual.

believing a man who reads a book must have a sensitive heart.

Every punch he landed, every blow he felt, made him feel alive. The punches became addictive. At some point, he’d brought his addiction home to his own four walls.

“Eight hours every day at the factory, then more at home: I’m constantly on the lookout for new books to read to the women rolling the cigars.”

no matter how many books I read, there will always be more that I haven’t read. That’s the tragedy. Anyone who enjoys reading wants to read every good book there is.”

“Mr. Darcy only reads stuff to think about, and I think it’s time he did something— with his hands. So I gave him a book about woodworking; he’s got a lot of wood in his garden.”

Many an author’s career has been founded on their books’ gifting potential, rather than their content, provided the book served as an interior design statement, looked elegant on the bookshelf, and coordinated well with a gold- framed Dalí print of elephants on stilts.

He had last read it twenty- five years ago, and was in the habit of reopening each of his books every quarter century, to see whether they had anything new to tell him.

Of course, no one could take happiness with them either, but nor could anyone have too much happiness in life.

Carl could always sense appropriate words when he read them, but he was never good at finding suitable words to write himself.

They would be no more than a substitute, as bitter tasting as chicory coffee to someone accustomed to fresh, ground beans.

seemed the world was changing, and not just in a single aspect: the changes were ambushing him like a pack of hungry wolves surrounding an injured sheep.

little bit of stupidity never did anyone any harm. You just have to take care it doesn’t get out of hand and spread.”

“Feeling embarrassed sucks. I know— I get embarrassed all the time.”

Carl divided readers into hares, tortoises, and fish. He himself was a fish, allowing a book to carry him in its current, as its pace moved between fast and leisurely. Hares were speed- readers, hurtling through a book and promptly forgetting what they had read just a few pages earlier, forever needing to flip the pages back to check. Tortoises flipped back too, because they read so slowly

opening a new book was always a significant moment. It made Carl uneasy each time. Would it live up to the expectations generated by title, cover, and blurb? Would it perhaps even exceed them? Would the language and style succeed in moving him?

Even when an extraordinary book ends at precisely the right point, with precisely the right words, and anything further would only destroy that perfection, it still leaves us wanting more pages. That is the paradox of reading.

I miss my students so much. Especially the ones who struggled. They were the ones I could teach the most to.”

A name from a book was always like a corset, and once a personality was properly developed, it would burst out.

Then he read his favorite novel, The Uncommon Reader.

Some people stop eating when they are unhappy. The following day, Carl stopped reading.

reading was an activity with a mind of its own. It couldn’t be forced.

crying is unknown in the animal kingdom— it’s uniquely human. Wherever we are from, whatever language we speak, all humans cry.

“What we know, and what we believe we know, are sometimes two different things.”

Paper is carbon, he thought. We humans are the same. Books and humans are made of the same stuff.

Mount Everest and dived into the Mariana Trench. He had traveled remote regions of Kurdistan and conducted research in the icy Antarctic.

And just like dancing, it was important that one person could do it right, because then they could lead.

That is true for intimate things as well

Um,

“Hmm.”

A woman who had locked herself in a prison of her own choosing.

That was the beautiful thing about walking: it was so very simple.

If she said it often enough, perhaps she would believe it. She had a lot of practice at believing. It wasn’t as easy as people thought. Belief took a lot of effort— every day, given that real life had a tendency to contradict belief.

But even when a situation seemed hopeless, everything could turn around in a moment. He held on to that hope.

schizophrenia

Works by the Marquis de Sade and Giacomo Casanova appeared in his bedroom, but only to confront those masters of erotic literature with the miserable reality of his own bed frame.

Carl did not fear death, and never had.

Sometimes having your wishes come true can be a curse.