"So it's surely no coincidence that my passion for literary fiction began, somewhere in my early teens, with the dawning realization that I was a flawed creature, no longer the golden hero of my childhood dreams. With my own heart already beating at cross-purposes, I read to have my emerging view of the world, and my shaky place in it, validated. Peers and parents seemed to take a dim view of this interest: “Always with your head in a book. You're anti-social.” Actually, I was trying to be pro-social; I was reading to feel less weird, to see my anxieties reflected in other “characters,” to enjoy that delicious “shock of recognition.” Even then, the paradox seemed clear: Reading is a solitary activity that makes me feel less alone. I wasn't escaping from life, but escaping into life, or into a sense of it that more truly echoed my own"
Amen to that !
