"Responsible for every successful connection ever made between a book and a reader--no less than between people--is that deepest of all human mysteries, emotional readiness: upon which the shape of every life is vitally dependent. How morbidly circumstantial life can seem when we think of the apparent randomness with which we welcome or repel what will turn out to be--or what might have turned out to be--some of the most important relationships of our lives. How often have lifelong friends or lovers shuddered to think, 'If I had met you at any other time...' It's the same between a reader and a book that becomes an intimate you very nearly did not encounter with an open mind or a welcoming heart because you were not in the right mood; that is, in a state of readiness."
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Essayists from the United StatesMemoirists from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesFeminists from the United StatesWomen born in the 1930s
Original Language: English
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Sources
Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader (2020)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vivian_Gornick
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Vivian Gornick
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