We demand windows...and literature...is a series of windows, even of doors....Good reading...can be described either as an enlargement or as a temporary annihilation of the self. But that is an old paradox; 'he that loseth his life shall save it.' We therefore delight to enter into other men's beliefs...even though we think them untrue. And into their passions, though we think them depraved....Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality....In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself....Here--as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing--I transcend myself, and am never more myself than when I do.
--C.S. Lewis