Stephen King on reading

"...books are a uniquely portable magic. I usually listen to
one in the car (always unabridged; I think abridged audio-
books are the pits), and carry another wherever I go. You just
never know when you’ll want an escape hatch: mile-long
lines at tollbooth plazas, the fifteen minutes you have to
spend in the hall of some boring college building waiting for
your advisor (who’s got some yank-off in there threatening to
commit suicide because he/she is flunking Custom Kurm-
furling 101) to come out so you can get his signature on a
drop-card, airport boarding lounges, laundromats on rainy
afternoons, and the absolute worst, which is the doctor’s
office when the guy is running late and you have to wait half
an hour in order to have something sensitive mauled. At
such times I find a book vital. If I have to spend time in pur-
gatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I’ll be all
right as long as there’s a lending library (if there is it’s prob-
ably stocked with nothing but novels by Danielle Steel and
Chicken Soupbooks, ha-ha, joke’s on you, Steve)..."