“Isn’t it amazing how we take them for granted, those little black marks on paper! Twenty-six different shapes known as letters, arranged in endless combinations known as words. Lifeless, until someone’s eye falls on them.
But then a miracle happens. Along the optic nerve, almost at the speed of light, these tiny symbols are flashed to the brain where they are instantly decoded into ideas, images, concepts, meanings.
The eye’s owner is changed too. The little black marks can make him love or hate, laugh or cry, fight or run away. And what do we call this incredible chain of events? Reading.
The spoken word rushes by and is gone, but the written word remains…endures. It can be consulted over and over again…forever.”
- Arthur Gordon
