“I’m dreaming again for the first time in years, and it feels good.”

“This is my resolution for the New Year. I will be honest with myself. I’ll keep my eyes open. I’ll see what’s there, not just what I want to see.”

“..the silence has been like the in-drawn breath before a scream”

“It’s amazing how quickly a bone can heal. If only the heart were as durable. A little plaster, two months of bed rest, and voila! your broken heart is mended.”

Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest is lighted in the mind.”

“Bibliotherapy”—using books and written word as a form of therapy—was first coined in the early 1900s, but even if you’ve never thrown that word around before, you likely know its power. Books help us navigate anxiety, depression, loneliness, and not simply by giving us a means of escape, but by widening our view. I feel all alone in my choices, but what if I’m not? Books help us to be bold, be curious, be ourselves.

As someone who was as recently as last month looking for a therapist, it was reassuring to be reminded of the power of books to comfort, heal, and promote change. Sometimes I think us readers take this gift for granted, or at least I do.

“Literature is both my joy and my comfort: it can add to every happiness and there is no sorrow it cannot console.”

The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he'd learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.