Readers Of The Underground New York Public Library: A Photoessay

"Read books. Care about things. Get excited. Try not to be too down on yourself. Enjoy the ever present game of knowing."

“I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.” 
― Patrick Rothfuss

“We become the books we read.” 

― Matthew Kelly

“Come to the book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it and draw your own map.” 
― Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“Still in my coat and hat, I sank onto the stair to read the letter. (I never read without making sure I am in a secure position. I have been like this ever since the age of seven when, sitting on a high wall and reading The Water Babies, I was so seduced by the descriptions of underwater life that I unconsciously relaxed my muscles. Instead of being held buoyant by the water that so vividly surrounded me in my mind, I plummeted to the ground and knocked myself out. I can still feel the scar under my fringe now. Reading can be dangerous.)” 
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale