“I try to restrict my requests to the guard to books, so that if he thinks of me after he has left my room, he will think of books. I need books more than I need food. If I were given a choice between more food or a plentiful supply of books, my decision would be immediate.”
– Terry Waite, Taken on Trust
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We can physically have just enough food to survive.
There are a minimum number of calories we need to stay alive.
But is there a minimum number of books we can survive on?
I would feel starved if I only had one book to read at a time.
If I was limited to one book a month.
Or even one book a week.
The nourishment books give us is infinite.
This is something that Terry Waite acutely felt during his four years of solitary confinement after being kidnapped in Lebanon.
His book, Taken on Trust, is magnificent.
I return to it often. Both, by picking up the book, and by revisiting its scenes in my mind.
It’s not so much about his physical confinement but how he struggled with the mental confinement.
Words were his salvation.
Conversations With Quotations 