How Reading Can 'Fill Us With Silence'

"Reading ought to be an act of homage to the god of all truth. We open our hearts to words that reflect the reality he has created or the greater reality which he is. It is also an act of humility and reverence towards other men who are the instruments by which god communicated his truth to us. Reading gives god more glory when we get more out of it, when it is a more deeply vital act not only of our intelligence but of our whole personality, absorbed and refreshed in thought, meditation, prayer, or even in the contemplation of god. Books can speak to us like god, like men or like the noise of the city we live in. They speak to us like god when they bring us light and peace and fill us with silence."
--Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude