Freedom in Literature

What I wanted did not belong to me by right and whilst it could not be refused to me in quite the same way, we still have subtle punishments for anyone who insists on what they are and what they want. Walled inside the little space marked out for me by family and class, it was the limitless world of the imagination that made it possible for me to scale the sheer face of other people’s assumptions. Inside books there is perfect space and it is that space which allows the reader to escape from the problems of gravity.

- Jeanette Winterson, "Art & Life" pg 157, Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effontery.