Beware Gnomes Bearing Books

A friend recently told me some reasons why people stop writing. My reason (having fallen over the edge of the world) was apparently not a popular one. But I also wonder why people write in the first place. Some might say that it's a way for people to express themselves, or a way to communicate. Some probably say it's because the gnomes again told them that they had no real choice, for it was either write or suffer the curse of a thousand warts. This, of course, would be why no frogs have recently made it to the best-seller list.

I, of couse, hold to my own theories. I write because it's easier to read than actually to listen to the voices in my head. They tend to keep talking, but if I let them be preoccupied with the effort of writing all those words down, they're much less distracting giving me time to actually hear myself think. I write to empty my mind, to give myself a clean slate to start writing incredibly complex and obviously incorrect math equations in, so it looks (to all the voices that can see inside my head) as if I've actually been doing work.

I write, because I hope that there is a constant amount of nonsense in the world, and if I were to finish putting it down in some semi-permanent form, people will finally be able to understand at least half of what I say.

So there are many reasons to write, but that of course leads to another more important question. Why does anyone bother to /read/? What do gnomes threaten to cause /that/ to happen?