Helene Hanff

From where I sit, London’s a lot closer than 17th Street.

Like the people who win our hearts, the books we come to love can introduce themselves in the strangest ways.

the books desired, located, sent and received are the happy vehicles for much else: conversation, friendship, affection, generosity, wit—in other words, for all the best things life can share with us.

books provide: a way of reaching out across time and space to friends and strangers, and to the absent presences that play such a large part in all our lives.

there we are, right between the lines.