13
" James stared at her. “I’ve never heard anyone talk about books like you do. It’s like they’re your friends.” “Aren’t they yours?” James raised his eyebrow. Lucy laughed. “Don’t even. They’re as much your friends as they are mine. I don’t mean it in some strange or creepy antisocial way. I mean that reading forms your opinions, your worldview, especially childhood reading, and anything that does that has an impact. So call them friends, call some stories enemies if you want, but don’t deny their influence.” She popped up straight. “You learn drama from the Brontës; sense from Austen; social justice from Dickens; beauty from Wordsworth, Keats, and Byron; patience and perseverance from Gaskell; and don’t even get me started on exercising your imagination with Carroll, Doyle, Wells, Wilde, Stoker— "
― Katherine Reay , The Brontë Plot