Reading is the unbelievably healthy way _x000D_ my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. _x000D_ Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to _x000D_ make contact with reality after a day of making things up.
Nora EphronRead
There is something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he's liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All of this happens to me when I surface from a great book.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the profound impact that reading a great book can have on a person, likening it to the physical effects of deep-sea diving.
Nora Ephron uses the metaphor of deep-sea diving to describe the immersive experience of reading a great book. Just as deep-sea divers can become disoriented and face physical challenges when resurfacing, readers may find themselves disoriented or changed after engaging deeply with the world of a book. This highlights the emotional and intellectual depth that literature can provide, leaving a lasting impression on the reader.
Themes
ReadingBooksImmersionLiteratureExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club discussion about the impact of literature.
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Similar quotes
The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
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In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.
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I do like people to read the books twice, because I write my novels about ideas which concern me deeply and I think are important, and therefore I want people to take them seriously. And to read it twice of course is taking it seriously.
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A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.
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