I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don't read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But reading, and particularly the reading of fiction, encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways . . . It allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy. And empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being.
~John Connolly
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