Hey, remember that stereotype-shattering study that found literature readers to be more empathetic and socially well adapted than non-literature readers? Thanks, science, for providing evidence that just because we sometimes stay home on a Friday night to read does NOT mean we maladjusted misanthropes.
Or how about this: In his "The Storytelling Animal," Jonathan Gottschall shares studies indicating that our brains form the same neural connections when we read fiction as they do when we live through our own experiences. Pretty cool, eh?
Of course, we readers probably already figured this out intuitively. Here are three writers who also didn't need science to tell them what's what, at least when it comes to the benefits of reading:
"Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books."
Anne Lamott
"Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die."
Ursula K. LeGuin
"We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become."
Do you have a favorite quote about reading?
Image: George Cochran Lambdin's "Girl Reading" (1872)