This is probably the best statement I have ever read about reading novels:

“A novel is not an allegory, I said, as the period was about to come to an end. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don’t enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won’t be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing. I just want you to remember this. That is all; class dismissed.”
-- Azar Nafisi
Reading Lolita In Teheran