Today at Quotable Tuesday, we welcome my friend and fellow VCFA alum Meredith Davis.
The quote that inspires Meredith as a writer comes from the illustrious (Hasn’t the Queen made him a Sir yet?) Philip Pullman. He is speaking about the relationship of the reader and the book and, ultimately, the library, the guardian of this extraordinary relationship:
“And the secrecy of it! The blessed privacy! No-one else can get in the way, no-one else can invade it, no-one else even knows what’s going on in that wonderful space that opens up between the reader and the book. That open democratic space full of thrills, full of excitement and fear, full of astonishment, where your own emotions and ideas are given back to you clarified, magnified, purified, valued. You’re a citizen of that great democratic space that opens up between you and the book. And the body that gave it to you is the public library. Can I possibly convey the magnitude of that gift?”
When I asked Meredith what, specifically, inspires her about this quote, she said, “The fact that I can be part of this intimate experience between a reader and a story, the connections that are made, unawares, I love that about being a writer. I love that about being a reader. Pullman nails what I love about books and story.”
