To learn to read is to light a fire;
every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.
- Victor Hugo
Burma
Umbria, Italy
At one magical instant the page of a book –
that string of confused, alien ciphers–shivered into meaning.
Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment,
whole universes opened.
You became, irrevocably, a reader.
- Alberto Manguel
Mandalay, Burma
Everywhere I go in the world, I see young and old,
rich and poor, reading books.
Whether readers are engaged in the sacred or the secular,
they are, for a time, transported to another world.
Bamiyan, Afghanistan
We are familiar with words describing images, but not so
familiar with images describing words and the
impact reading has on our lives.
Thailand
Garrett Stewart’s book, The Look of Reading:
Book, Painting, Text, explores the relationship of
reading and art.He points out that a wide array of artists from Rembrandt to Picasso and Cassatt
and dozens more,over the past 500 years
have painted people reading and the “look of reading” on the subjects’ faces.
Switzerland
Moscow, Russia
We read to know we are not alone.
- C.S. Lewis
India
A great book that comes from a great thinker
is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
- Pablo Neruda
Yemen
Books are the plane, and the train, and the road.
They are the destination, and the journey.
They are home.
- Anna Quindlen
India
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
– Jorge Luis Borges
Burma
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
- Emily Dickinson
Turkey
Sri Lanka
Reading is everything.
Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something,
learned something, become a better person.
Reading makes me smarter.
Reading gives me something to talk about later on…
Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.
- Nora Ephron
Japan
Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly,
into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.
- Joyce Carol Oates
Burma
Italy
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
- Joseph Addison
India
We invite you to download our free Portrait app
with twenty-minute video
http://bit.ly/W91oMo
Italy
Bamiyan, Afghanistan
Lourdes, France
Morocco
Afghanistan
