A big desire is not enough to meet the expectations of lost dreams.

And I came to understand in a way I never had before that books are truly the stuff of miracles. I even dared to dream that someday somehow I might surround myself with books from many times and many tongues...

I was never very good with either my hands or feet. It always seemed to me theyd just been stuck on as an afterthought during my making. Dreams didnt translate through sports or music dancing carpentry plumbing. I was the bookish kid more at home in the pages of a fantasy than in the room in the town on the planet.

In books I have traveled not only to other worlds but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be what I might aspire to and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself. More powerfully and persuasively than from the shalt nots of the Ten Commandments I learned the difference between good and evil right and wrong. A Wrinkle in Time described that evil that wrong existing in a different dimension from our own. But I felt that I too existed much of the time in a different dimension from everyone else I knew. There was waking and there was sleeping. And then there were books a kind of parallel universe in which anything might happen and frequently did a universe in which I might be a newcomer but was never really a stranger. My real true world. My perfect island.

We can imagine the books wed like to read even if they have not yet been written and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess even if they are well beyond our reach because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles--a library that in its variety and complexity fully reflects the reader we are.

When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.

How is it that a full two centuries after Jane Austen finished her manuscript we come to the world of Pride and Prejudice and find ourselves transcending customs strictures time mores to arrive at a place that educates amuses and enthralls us It is a miracle. We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming our own consciousness in someone elses mind.

When the voice of your friend or the page of your book sinks into democratic equality with the pattern of the wallpaper the feel of your clothes your memory of last night and the noises from the road you are falling asleep. The highly selective consciousness enjoyed by fully alert men with all its builded sentiments and consecrated ideals has as much to be called real as the drowsy chaos and more.

If you have a dream dont just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.

The worlds greatest achievers have been those who have always stayed focussed on their goals and have been consistent in their efforts.