Books don't stand on your head and laugh at you, nor do they flick rubbers at you and leave you bruised.

What books do do is let you escape into a fantasy world away from those angry teenagers, they let you escape into a place where everything and anything can be whatever you want it to be. Books can be better than people, but books are definitely better than my life at the moment.

So I read and read and read and I still can't get enough.

"But here, at the Shangri-La, all was in deep calm. In a moonless sky the stars were lit to the full and a pale blue sheen lay upon the dome of Karakal. Conway realized then that if by some change of plan the porters from the outside world were to arrive immediately, he would not be completely overjoyed at being spared the interval of waiting.

That evening after dinner, Conway made occasion to leave the others and stroll out into the clam, moon-washed courtyards. Shangri-La was lovely then, touched with the mystery that lies at the core of all loveliness. Conway was physically happy, emotionally satisfied and mentally at ease.

He was discovering happiness in the present. When he sat reading in the library, or playing Mozart in the music room he often felt the invasion of a deep spiritual emotion, as if the Shangri-La were indeed a living essence, distilled from the magic of the ages and miraculously preserved against time."

It's beautiful. I love it. I love the contrast between the mystical Shangri-La and my mundane, crappy life at the moment. I cry for what might be.