Only when the writer relinquishes the text, does the text come into existence. At that point, the existence of the text is a silent existence, silent until the moment in which a reader reads it. Only when the able eye makes contact with the markings on the tablet, does the text come to active life. All writing depends on the generosity of the reader.
—Alberto Manguel, Argentine-born Canadian essayist, novelist, anthologist, editor, and translator, The History of Reading, 1996