"Two weeks ago I was introduced to someone at a party, and upon hearing that I was a writer, this nice but sallow faced fellow said, 'I don't really read.' Our conversation soon followed a neatly preordained formula that included the words: 'weather' 'holidays' 'nice to meet you.'

"Once I was reading Anton Chekov's notebooks, and I came across this sentence: 'It usually takes as much time to feel happy as to wind up one's watch.' Later that year (for it was very cold that year and I spent a lot of time reading), I came across this advice: 'Sell you cleverness and purchase bewilderment,' written by the sage poet Rumi. Two in the bag. Finally, this little nugget found in a foreword several years ago--'There are many things we haven't yet learned how to read,'--by Philip Pullman.

"These three short sentences, written by a Russian, a Persian, and an Englishman are all interesting. They may or may not change your life. But that damned fool who 'doesn't really read' will never contemplate a single one of them.  Can you believe that? Yeah, I know. So I read for the thrill of discovery, and sometimes for that second ineffable sensation, that approximates remembering something forgotten."

--Rodes Fishburne, author of the new novel Going to See the Elephant

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