Reading, for me, is entertainment and an escape from the real world. But it can also inform and stretch the boundaries of the life I live.
"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."
As relevant an observation today as it was 170 years ago.