A thousand lives

George R.R. Martin

Some author, perhaps it was Anne Tyler, once said she wrote novels to live more than one life, or something to that effect. Readers do the same thing, of course. George R.R. Martin put it this way: "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies."

Read a mystery and you can be a detective in pursuit of a killer. Or you might even experience what it's like to be a killer on the run, without the inconvenience of actually having to murder someone.

Read a romance and you can feel all the excitement, passion and misery a lover experiences while you sit alone in a room. It's not quite the same thing, of course, but it's better than just sitting alone in a room.

Read one of the classics and for a few hours you can be Pip or Scout or Huck or Holden or Hester and know what it's like to live their lives in the comfort of your favorite chair.

I don't believe in reincarnation, but I do believe in living a thousand lives in one lifetime.