Hello there, this is Sam, and Happy Tuesday, and welcome to the Victor Prep Vocab podcast.

And this is episode 120, yes, that's right.

And I'm going to start with a number of our quotes from a famous writer about reading

and why they read.

So I have a quote today from his John Paul Sartre, and it's written in his autobiography,

which is called Words.

And he has a section where he talks about when he first learned to read.

And this quote is from just after he learned to read, and he's expressing how excited

he is about about reading, basically.

So okay, this is a John Paul Sartre.

I climbed onto my folding bedstead with Hector Mallow's Songs Funny, which I knew by

heart.

And half reciting it, half deciphering it, I went through every page, one after another

when the last was turned, I knew how to read.

I was wild with delight, those withered voices in their little nature books, those voices

which my grandfather revived with the glance, which he heard and which I did not hear were

mine.

I would listen to them, I would fill myself with ceremonious speeches, and I would know

everything.

Books were my birds, and my nests, my pets, my stable, and my countryside.

The library was the world trapped in a mirror.

It had its infinite breadth, its variety, and its unpredictability.

...