QUOTE : You’re right,” he said. “Books are company. They contain the thoughts and voices of other people who live or have lived in this world. All these authors have in common the fact that they’re buried here, opposite us. Even though you can’t hear them yet, they speak to us all the time. Not just them, the ones who never wrote a thing, too. You’d hear them if you didn’t have the radio on. If you start reading them, they’ll seem familiar to you, you’ll see.” (I thought of all the people I had seen arguing out loud with themselves on the streets.) He paused. I suppose he must have realized that once again I had begun to doubt his sanity. “Let me suggest something: go and stand in front of the bookshelf and choose a book you don’t know, any one you like. You can take it, I’ll lend it to you.