Words, verse, and reading are the redeeming miracle of my life. Reading created the inner landscape, as Sam Sheppard calls it. I would not be able to have put my own experiences into expression without the example of writers like Sheppard and Kerouac, poets like Wordsworth, and thinkers like Beckett. Reading did not come easily for me as a kid. My mind held every resistance to it. I wish everyone patience and courage in the journey to literacy. I assure you, it is a worthwhile journey, no matter when it begins.

Stephan Jenkins, Third Eye Blind