Worthy books
Are not companions—they are solitudes:
We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.
Books Quotes
Samuel Johnson is on this page more than once for good reason. In The Rambler (1750) he wrote that no place gives a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library. Boswell (1791) has him saying that a man ought to read just as inclination leads him, because what he reads as a task will do him little good. Alberto Manguel, Emerson and Northrop Frye are among the most-quoted writers here, which is what you would expect from people who spent their working lives reading.
Two entries are flagged as misattributed. The quip about a manuscript that is both good and original, with the good parts not original and the original parts not good, is credited to Johnson. “Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!” is credited to General Patton.
Hark, the world so loud,
And they, the movers of the world, so still!
Studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty Dead.
My early and invincible love of reading, * * * I would not exchange for the treasures of India.
"Do you ever read any of the books you burn?"
He laughed. "That's against the law!"
"Oh. Of course."