We are like books. Most people only see our cover, the minority read only the introduction, many people believe the critics, and only few will know our content.
Attribution: uncertain. It circulates as Émile Zola's, but it can't be found in his works.
Related in anthology
- The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world... The moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world. — Zola: we are like books that few really read, an echo of reading as entering other worlds.