Why we need stories, part 2

"When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.���  - Louise Erdrich (The Plague of Doves)

"Certainly, as a reader, I had always discovered the deepest truths in fiction; it was through reading novels that I learned about the world, a world not only of fact but of imagination and emotion."
 - Alice Hoffman

''If you are concerned for the future of our civilization, there is no more cheering sight than a boy or girl who is lost in a book. It's an image I cling to, in moments of depression: the absorbed child, reading.'' -  Susan Cooper (Dreams and Wishes)

"I have loved books all my life. There is nothing more beautiful in our material world than the book."  - Patti Smith (Just Kids)

The poem in the picture captions is from Alive Together: New & Selected Poems by Lisel Mueller. The Alice Hoffman quote comes from an interview. The books from which the other quotes are drawn (Erdrich's novel, Susan Cooper's essay collection, and Smith's memoir) are all highly recommended. The art is by Warwick Goble (1862-1943).