Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

Oates frames reading as an unusually powerful form of empathy: not merely learning about others, but being drawn—almost against one’s will—into their inner life. The emphasis on slipping “involuntarily” and “helplessly” suggests that literature can bypass our defenses and prejudices, temporarily displacing the self with another consciousness. By calling it the “sole means,” she elevates reading above other arts and experiences as the most direct route to inhabiting another person’s voice and moral imagination. The line also implies a paradox: reading is solitary, yet it is the most intimate social act, creating a private encounter with another mind across distance, time, and difference.