Readers live a million lives in 1 lifetime

My informant learned this saying from an elderly coworker at a bookstore she worked at with the following advice of “You don’t need to worry about what you will do in your life if you’ve read books because you’ve already experienced all those lives”. My informant thought about the saying on the train and came to realize that to her, a significant part of her most memorable memories came from books.

This saying is important to my informant because it serves as a confidence booster. It reminds her to take pride in being a book worm and that some of the experience she gains from reading can be applicable to her current surroundings. There is some truth to the statement, in that reading about surviving in the woods may help you survive in the woods, but to remember everything that you’ve read is not something that most do.