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Quote from Two Great Writers

These two quotes seem appropriate to writers and readers.
       
"When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me. Sometimes I read a book with pleasure, and detest the author. It is easy enough for a man to walk who has a horse to command. The invalid is not to be pitied who has a remedy up his sleeve. And such is the advantage I receive from books.
        "They relieve me from idleness, rescue me from company I dislike, and blunt the edge of my grief, if it is not too extreme. They are the comfort and solitude of my old age. When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as the running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the cloud from my mind. And they don't rebel because I use them only for lack of pasttimes more practical and alive. They always receive me with welcome."
___Montaigne


"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us which perchance will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men, not one has been omitted, and each has answered them according to his ability, by his word, and his life."
__Henry David Thoreau