I wonder if other letter readers do what I do

Sir, – As a regular reader of the letters page and an occasional contributor, I am a fan of the philosophy of the 17th-century writer Blaise Pascal, who wrote: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter so I wrote a long one instead.” This quote, incidentally, is often incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain.

When I open my Irish Times I read and, for the most part, enjoy the short letters. As for the long ones, I read the first sentence to see if it is of interest. Then, in most cases, I ignore the rest of the letter. I wonder if other readers do the same. – Yours, etc,

TONY CORCORAN,

Rathfarnham,

RM Block

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Dublin 14.