Avid Reading Quotes

“Regarding books - specifically their life-enhancing capacity and their ability to build bridges between yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the inner and outer life, the real and the ideal, and the body and the mind - Hesse became an evangelist of a secular spirit, which nevertheless still had a transcendental spark in it, and which in his own finite existence touched upon a little piece of immortality, He was not concerned with reality but with the mystery of life, which consisted at one and the same time of nature and spirit. This inherent contradiction culminated, at best, in the growth of civilization, at worst in barbarism. It was necessary to look the danger of the self-destruction of the individual and of the while squarely in the face; such a danger was part and parcel of the claim to truth. That was why this could not be achieved simply through avid reading - the decisive factor was always real life.”
― Gunnar Decker, Hesse: The Wanderer and His Shadow