Monday, November 14, 2011

Books. The more I thought about how to stop and get myself back together as one sane, whole person, the more I thought about books. I thought about escape. Not running to escape but reading to escape. Cyril Connolly, twentieth-century writer and critic, wrote that "words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living." That was how I wanted to use books: as an escape back to life. I wanted to engulf myself in books and come up whole again.
Nina Sankovitch, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

5 comments:

Beth said...

That’s how I see it – books are an escape into life – into different worlds, into the lives and minds of others – a learning experience.
But I must confess, they are sometimes an escape from life. ;)

Trish said...

Yes - they are that, too. Isn't it great how versatile books are?

Sam (Tiny Library) said...

I so want to read Tolstoy and the Purple Chair but my library system doesn't have it. Guess I'll have to wait and put it on my Christmas list :)

laughingwolf said...

once i learned to read, i had to write... then draw/color...

any more escapist than that?

Trish said...

Sam - I'm hoping Santa might bring me a copy, too.

laughingwolf - that pretty much covers it.