I am an avid reader. And reading has allowed me to escape the bonds of an intellectually impoverished childhood.

This quote, that is supposedly, from R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragon is a grand pronouncement on how to live.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

The sediment of this quote might reveal some truth but the reader is in a more nuanced predicament. Readers explore vicariously the lives in the books they read with varying energy. If reading is an escape or misdirected then rather than enhancing life, reading can damage it, holding live back, stifling growth.