Some day, his mind said, that boy would know what things were in the books and what things were not.

Without the study of books, such a memory as the child may possess is not left idle; everything he sees and hears makes an impression on him, he keeps a record of men's sayings and doings, and his whole environment is the book from which he unconsciously enriches his memory, till his judgment is able to profit by it.

A great book begins with an idea; a great life, with a determination

From early youth I endeavored to read books in the right way and I was fortunate in having a good memory and intelligence to assist me.

The answer, he told me, was to be found in reading. Can it be that simple? It was books, he said, that made him a better man.

Children learn to read by being in the presence of books.

Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can.

And so he learned to read. From then on his progress was rapid.

Children's reading and children's thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which this country will rise. Or not rise. In these days of tension and confusion, writers are beginning to realize that books for children have a greater potential for good or evil than any other form of literature on earth.

In the humble environs of my boyhood, books were a scarce commodity. By local standards, however, the personal library of STR Manickam, a former ‘revolutionary’ or militant nationalist, was sizeable. He encouraged me to read all I could and I often visited his home to borrow books.

You want to give him the book of his own life, the book that will locate him, parent him, arm him for the changes.

His whole mind has been given to books, and I am hardly exaggerating if I say that they are more real to him than Nature. He imagines that all knowledge can be got out of books, and rests upon the authority of some master or other; nor does he entertain any misgiving that the method of learning which led to proficiency in the rules of grammar will suffice to lead him to a mastery of the laws of Nature. The youngster, thus unprepared for serious study, is turned loose among his medical studies, with the result, in nine cases out of ten, that the first year of his curriculum is spent in learning how to learn.

He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.

Reading, his therapist had suggested, had likely been his first drug.