When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.

The book. Calming object. Held in the hand.

To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.

I have a household of good books, and reading tends to take for me the place of experience — or rather to become itself experience concentrated. You will say this is a dull picture, but I cultivate dulness in a world grown too noisy.

Some people read to confirm their own hopelessness. Others read to be rescued from it.

"A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book."

[<i>Letters of Note</i>; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]

[When under stress I thought of] the books I had read [and applied] them to myself. I [imagined I was] one of the characters [and soon found myself] in made-up circumstances which were most agreeable to my inclinations.

Books! To fling myself into a book, to be carried away to another world while being at my most grounded, on my butt or in my bed or favorite chair is literally how I have survived being here at all.

[Books] were the world I could lose myself in when the one I was actually living in became too lonely or harsh or difficult to bear.

When I lost the use of my Eyes it was a comfort to think there were so few real books that I could easily find some one to read me all of them.

I often carry things to read
so that I will not have to look at
the people.

These books are my friends, my companions.

These books were a way of escaping from the unhappiness of my life.