And so, when I began to read the proffered pages, I at one moment lost the train of thought in the text and drowned it in my own feelings. In these seconds of absence and self-oblivion, centuries passed with every read but uncomprehended and unabsorbed line, and when, after a few moments, I came to and re-established contact with the text, I knew that the reader who returns from the open seas of his feelings is no longer the same reader who embarked on that sea only a short while ago.Anonymous
About This Quote
In this famous quote, Leo Tolstoy says that the biggest change occurs in a reader when he or she leaves the book and returns to their own thoughts. There is a moment when a reader takes a break from the book and stops thinking about it. The book itself keeps going, but the reader has lost track of what is happening in his or her life. When that reader returns to the book, he or she is no longer the same reader who left it.
Source: Dictionary Of The Khazars
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