Gaiman on libraries, reading, daydreaming

Excellent Author Neil Gaiman gave an amazing lecture on "Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming" in 2013 that was reprinted in The Guardian. Some highlights include

• Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it's a gateway drug to reading.
• And the second thing fictton does is to build empathy.
• You're also finding out ...The world doesn't have to be like this. Things can be different.
• Fiction can show you a different world.
• But libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about eduction (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.
• Libraries really are the gates to the future.
• We all -- adults and children, writers and readers -- have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine.

The whole article is really wonderful. Read it here.