“You can pick up a book but a book can throw you across the room. A book can move you from a comfortable armchair to a rocky place where the sea is. A book can separate you from your husband, your wife, your children, all that you are. It can heal you out of a lifetime of pain. Books are kinetic, and like all huge forces, need to be handled with care. But they do need to be handled.”
—Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995), 122–3.