The compulsion to read is this: once you have it you never lose it. As constant as a sunrise, as abiding as a sunset. Mine's been there since I can remember, in fact the first fragments of any real memory involve reading and the last will, no doubt, have a book in there somewhere.

I was talking about this with a friend a few evenings ago in the cafe of the National Gallery, doing my best to sketch out  exactly what is so intoxicating about reading. The shape of what I was trying to say did n't come out; feelings are n't easily captured sometimes, so the sense was there, but the taut description, which is what I wanted remained out of focus.

But you're never more than a few books away from the sentence or the statement that pulls the ether down, grabs it with both hands, moulds it, bends it, and throws out the exact shape of what you were hoping for. So what has the compulsion to read done for me? This: "My mind has travelled through words and books to places where my feet will never touch the earth" This is the most heartfelt and the most accurate explanation of what words have meant for me. Taken with joy from a short story by Ishmael Beah, an exciting writer from Sierra Leone now living in New York City.