As Old As Time

by Liz Braswell

“You can’t have adventures without risk. You can’t have great things if you constantly fear loss.

The victims of kidnapping often wound up sympathizing with the perpetrator. It was a sickness, a very scientifically predictable one.

Stockholm syndrome

When other children dreamed of mansions with fountains and big silky beds and servants to do their bidding, this was what Belle dreamed about. The money to buy all the books she ever wanted from all over the world—and a place to keep them.

“Books can tell you almost everything that mankind knows. Or imagines,” she added after a moment.

I had books. Reading them is like traveling to other places. Being other people. Living other lives.

The best, and my favorite, way of escaping reality.

Life is a strange mixture of all of these genres, she mused, and it doesn’t have nearly as neat and happy an ending as you often get in books.

“Not…all change is bad. You’re making me realize that.”

“Every time I came in, it was like a whole new unexplored land would be there waiting for me. Another story to step into.

How I feel every time I go into a bookstore.

Everyone is different. Each person has his or her own soul and is master of his or her own destiny.”