I think reading is important for a variety of things. I mean

“I think reading is important for a variety of things. I mean, first of all, it's a way to get information and find out what's going on in the world. But also, it helps your imagination,” said Breckin Meyer, in words that may seem simple to the hurried ear, yet hold within them an ancient and luminous truth. For he speaks of reading not merely as an act of learning, but as a sacred bridge — a passage between the seen and the unseen, between the world as it is and the world as it could be. Through reading, the mind drinks of both knowledge and wonder, and the soul finds nourishment for its eternal hunger to understand, to dream, and to create.

In every age, the wise have revered the written word as a vessel of power. To read is to commune with minds long vanished, to let the dead speak again, to stand in conversation with the gods of thought. The ancient libraries of Alexandria and Pergamon were not built merely to store scrolls, but to house the living spirit of civilization — the imagination of mankind pressed into ink. Meyer reminds us of this eternal inheritance: that when we read, we are not merely gathering information, but awakening the imagination, the creative force that has lifted humanity from cave to cosmos.

The first gift of reading, he says, is knowledge — to “find out what's going on in the world.” Knowledge is the lamp by which the traveler finds his path through the dark forest of confusion. It shields the mind against ignorance, deceit, and despair. When a man reads, he learns not only the names of things but their meaning. He understands the pulse of his time and the heartbeat of others. To be informed is to be awake, to see beyond the veil of rumor and fear. Without reading, the mind sleeps; with it, the mind stands guard.

But Meyer’s deeper wisdom lies in the second half of his saying — that reading “helps your imagination.” For knowledge alone makes a man clever, but imagination makes him wise. Knowledge gathers facts; imagination gives them life. When we read, the mind begins to travel beyond the text — to dream with the author, to see the unseen, to feel what we have not lived. The reader becomes both witness and creator, breathing new life into the words. Reading is not passive consumption; it is participation in the act of creation itself.

Consider Don Quixote, the old knight of Cervantes’ tale. He was a man whose mind had been inflamed by the books he loved. From those pages, he imagined a world of valor and glory, of dragons to slay and maidens to defend. Though the world mocked him, his imagination gave meaning to his existence. It is true, he mistook windmills for giants — yet is it not better to battle windmills than to never dream at all? Through his folly, Cervantes teaches us that imagination, born of reading, can transform even the humblest life into a noble quest.

Reading, then, is both mirror and window: a mirror in which we see ourselves more clearly, and a window through which we glimpse the infinite. Through reading, a child discovers who he might become; through reading, a grown man remembers the boundless joy of wonder. Every book is a map to the inner kingdom, and each page a gate through which imagination steps forth to shape the world anew.

Let this, therefore, be your practice: read daily, not only for news or knowledge, but for nourishment. Read the words of the wise and the wild, the poets and the prophets. Read not only what confirms your mind, but what challenges it. Let reading be your ritual of renewal — your way of drinking from the spring of human thought. For in reading, you awaken both the mind’s clarity and the soul’s flame.

And remember always: imagination is the child of reading, and creation is the child of imagination. A world that stops reading stops dreaming, and a man who stops dreaming ceases to grow. So take up the book as one takes up a sword of light — not merely to learn, but to become more alive. For through reading, you not only discover the world — you create it anew within yourself.