Ockert (One of Nell's guinea pigs):

Like Mary said about her husband, I can't imagine how people keep themselves busy fishing and so on every weekend in a little world sixty miles around Pretoria. That's all their world consists of. He can get no escapism ..., he's just busy with himself all day. If I had to be occupied with myself all day I'd go mad, crazy. I'd say our reading is like Sigmund Freud said, "Dreams are the means whereby we compensate for the harshness of reality." You can say "reading" instead of "dreams."

Nell, p. 241

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