Reading Is a Conversation, Not an Input

Treating reading as information input tempts us to compete in quantity: how many books, how much remembered. What truly remains, however, is the conversation continuing inside us after we close the pages.

A good book does not hand us answers. It offers questions. Rather than underline, we might write our own words in the margins: time for a quiet exchange with the author and with who we were until yesterday.

Being able to pause over one line is richer than finishing a book quickly. Reading may be the act of tracing our own outlines anew through another person's thoughts.