why read?

Some people just don't get why I spend hours and hours with my nose buried in a book.

Why read, they'd say, when you can live life? Why spend a big chunk of your time in someone else's story, when you need to BE in your story?

Well, now, I have just the answer.

From Darren of An Extra Smidgen of Eternity, The Sandman Book of Dreams:

Stories are hope. They take you out of yourself for a bit, and when you get dropped back in, you're different - you're stronger, you've seen more, you've felt more. Stories are like spiritual currency.

And from the American Gods:

Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.

I rest my case.