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.

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

I was burning through books every day - stories about people and places I'd never heard of. They were perhaps the only thing that kept me from teetering into utter despair.

I have a shelf of comfort books, which I read when the world closes in on me or something untoward happens.

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

Books are the best means — private, discreet, reliable — of overcoming reality.

My fondness for good books was my salvation.

I cannot live without books.

Books console us, calm us, prepare us, enrich us and redeem us.

Dear Reader,
We wouldn’t need books quite so much if everyone around us understood us well. But they don’t. Even those who love us get us wrong. They tell us who we are but miss things out. They claim to know what we need, but forget to ask us properly first. They can’t understand what we feel — and sometimes, we’re unable to tell them, because we don’t really understand it ourselves. That’s where books come in. They explain us to ourselves and to others, and make us feel less strange, less isolated and less alone. We might have lots of good friends, but even with the best friends in the world, there are things that no one quite gets. That’s the moment to turn to books. They are friends waiting for us any time we want them, and they will always speak honestly to us about what really matters. They are the perfect cure for loneliness. They can be our very closest friends.
Yours,
Alain

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 change us. Books save us. I know this because it happened to me.

Some say they get lost in books, but I find myself, again and again, in the pages of a good book. Humanly speaking, there is no greater teacher, no greater therapist, no greater healer of the soul, than a well-stocked library.

Life transforming ideas have always come to me through books.