Swimming Lessons

by Claire Fuller

Writing does not exist unless there is someone to read it, and each reader will take something different from a novel, from a chapter, from a line.

“A book becomes a living thing only when it interacts with a reader.

“It’s difficult to live with both hope and grief.”

but in the privacy of my bed I will let the tears fall down my moth-eaten face.

we’ll take armfuls of books out to the unmown lawn and lie on a blanket with them spread about us. We will read to each other and watch the gulls wheeling above.

The house had always been full of books, far too many for one person to get through in a lifetime.

Fiction is about readers. Without readers there is no point in books, and therefore they are as important as the author, perhaps more important.

But often the only way to see what a reader thought, how they lived when they were reading, is to examine what they left behind.

Everyone needs a place to escape to, even if it’s only inside their head.”

I would try harder to be happy.

“It’s about believing two opposing ideas in your head at the same time: hope and grief. Human beings do it all the time with religion—the flesh and the spirit—you know that. Imagination and reality.”