It’s true that I’ve been reading books since I was a child, but my reading wasn’t always consistent. It became sporadic and sparse when I got to high school up until my first year of university because I was so dead-set on schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and socializing. Along the way, the idea that I couldn’t possibly juggle my academics and social life with reading books got embedded in my head. I thought that I just didn’t have the time.
Until last year, that is. I have this amazing friend from university who still read books for leisure despite having 3 jobs and doing full-time coursework. I was so inspired. She showed me by example that I could actually read books consistently too–as long as I made it a priority. This line of thinking is also what made me start this blog; I realized that people just sometimes need good role models to demonstrate by example.
So during lockdown last year, I decided to make reading a priority again. And at the end of 2020, I was able to finish 50 books. I’m not saying this to be boastful or to pressure you to read as much as I did, but to show you that you can make the time to read if you want to.
And I hope you do, because reading literature has truly changed my life for the better and I want the same for you. I didn’t know I needed the nourishment for the soul I could get from reading word after word. So, here are 5 quotes about literature that perfectly articulate its power and importance–and my contemplations about them.
"Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us toward it, whereas literature teaches us to notice. Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature, which in turn makes us better readers of life."
Life is too chaotic, too random, and too messy. But literature focuses on what little order and detail we can discern within all that chaos. Reading books taught me how to be sensitive to language, ourselves, other people, and the environment around us. And focusing on those details helps me recognize the subtleties behind the things I encounter.
It was William Zinsser who said that “writing and thinking and learning are the same process.” I argue it’s the same with reading, that reading is thinking. And reading well-articulated sentences? It clarifies thinking. If you reflect on it, whenever we think about a problem, our thoughts emerge in our heads as words. Not sounds or smells, but sentences. So reading page after page of well-articulated sentences helps sharpen our thinking.
Literature can help us become better communicators not just towards others, but also to ourselves. And when we can communicate to ourselves clearly, we can have a more stable sense of being. This is how I think literature and life are so intimately connected with each other.
"When we study the differences, we see in bolder relief what we have in common."
I’m a big advocate for reading books as excellent training in empathy, a trait that builds the foundation for a strong consciousness, a set of morals, and compassion. Truly, I can’t think of a better way to teach empathy because reading books requires us to immerse ourselves wholly in other people’s beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.
Of course, there are differences between people from varying geographies, cultures, ages, and socio-economic classes, and you’re conscious of these details when you read. But these differences shouldn’t be something to be afraid of. Nor should they be used to treat each other as less than human. I realize increasingly that there’s more to bind us than to keep us apart.
I was surprised, for example, that I related so much with the impoverished UFOlogists living in rural America featured in Susan Lepselter’s The Resonance of Unseen Things. I don’t believe in aliens, but I do practice skepticism towards authority and societal norms–like these UFOlogists. Perhaps we focus too much on surface level details that we forget we’re more similar than we are different. We also fear things, desire things, want to feel loved, and want to find a greater purpose. I think we just have different outlets for these emotions.
This training in empathy has helped me see the complexity of other people, just like how I see myself as a complex being. So indeed, the more we read about people that are vastly different from us, the more we realize that we’re more similar than we think. And this is such a relief because it humanizes the people around us.
"While pain is universal, it is also utterly private. We cannot know whether our pain is like anybody else's pain until we talk about it."
Rarely do intense and deep-seated emotions get an outlet for expression; these are just too private and personal to share willy-nilly. Expressing guilt, fear, pain, suffering, longing, and love requires a sense of safety, confidence, and intimacy that we’d be lucky to find. But these kinds of emotions are the most restless and all-consuming of them all, especially when they’re not given an outlet.
I find that reading books somehow gives us that outlet, however. Time and time again, both fiction and nonfiction books have been able to validate my emotions and reassure me that what I feel is normal. I realize that we’re never really taught how to handle our emotions or how to properly communicate them, which is why I’m so drawn to books where I immerse myself in inner worlds. Still, the best books don’t empower us with feel-good platitudes or happy endings, but with a better clarity of ourselves and our environments–no matter how ugly or mundane the truth is.
I think people keep going back to books because we see some parts of ourselves within the characters. Rarely do we get validation for our feelings, because rarely do we reach out in the first place. But literature provides us with a safe space. And we’re empowered by characters who stand emotionally naked in front of readers and say, “This is who I am.” Literature articulates the deepest bowels of our human experience, which to me is an invaluable comfort.
"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
In this quote, Thoreau articulates the importance of solitude and how immersing ourselves in unhurried self-reflection can prompt us to live more deliberately. But we don’t need to live in the woods for over two years to be solitary. I argue that reading books can also accomplish as much.
Literature allows us to immerse ourselves in solitude, to give ourselves a prolonged period of time to reflect. Solitude is important because it’s a space where our minds are free from others’ inputs, and therefore allows us to balance our emotions and produce new insights. I mean, this is probably why so many people get sudden ideas in the shower! In the shower, there’s nothing to distract us from our own thoughts.
There’s a popular criticism waged against reading, which is that reading is not the same as living your life. Critics perhaps say this because reading stories unfolds purely in our imagination and has no concrete outputs to show for it. But I just don’t see any reason why we should pit reading and living against each other, when they enrich each other.
In Walden, the book from which this quote was taken from, Thoreau removed himself from the city and lived in a cabin by himself. But it’s only when he was removed from the city that he gained a better understanding of his life in the city. Similarly, reading enriches our lives by giving us a better understanding of the best ways to navigate through our lives. Living, on the other hand, enriches our reading by giving us experiences to draw on to connect more deeply with stories.
"The meaning of life is not hidden; it's in plain sight but it's scattered through thousands and thousands and thousands of books and art and music. The pieces of the puzzle are all out there."
Ah, the age-old craving for the meaning of life. Human beings need some sort of purpose to keep us going, and art nourishes this part of us.
But any art based in fiction, especially literature, has this unfair reputation for being removed from reality–that it’s a fantasy world where there’s no real bearing in the “real world.” Maybe it is, on the superficial level, especially when stories are populated with made-up characters and plots.
Fiction, however, is never meant to be taken literally. I believe it’s more productive to look for the higher truths these books represent, whatever truths that may be. And when I say higher truths, I mean in how characters grapple with anxiety, how the powerful take advantage of the weak, how modern-day society affects nature, and other facets of the human experience. This is how we can attempt to find the meaning of life within literature.
By the way, the documentary in which I took this quote from–Bookstores–truly convinced me to prioritize reading more books. If you want to motivate yourself to read books or just watch a love letter to books, Bookstores is the perfect thing to watch. It’s only 30 minutes long and you can watch it for free on Youtube.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
I’m not saying reading is more important than building relationships with other people. I’m not saying that reading is the most important thing to do either. Not at all. Reading books merely enriches our lives in profound ways.
If you’ve been wanting to read a book but lack the motivation to do it, then I hope these quotes about literature can nudge you to see the benefits of reading–enough to encourage you to finally pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read!
I’ll stop yapping about literature now, and go back to burying myself in books. Thanks for reading!
— Alyanna
