“We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images – a dog hunting through garbage cans, a plane circling above Alaskan mountains, an old lady furtively licking her napkin at a party. We sip into a dream, forgetting the room we’re sitting in, forgetting it’s lunchtime or time to go to work.” — John Gardner, “On Becoming a Novelist.”