"I read only to please myself, and..." - Quote by Voltaire

“Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.”

“The only reward to be expected from literature is contempt if one fails and hatred if one succeeds.”

“Learn to cultivate your own garden.”

“There ain't anything that is so interesting to look at as a place that a book has talked about.”

“...the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him..." - C.S. Lewis: Weight of Glory”

“To stand in a great bookshop crammed with books so new that their pages almost stick together, and the gilt on their backs is still fresh, has an excitement no less delightful than the old excitement of the second-hand bookstall.”

“All change is nothing but a decision. All decisions are controlled by what we link to pain and pleasure.”

“Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;And now, instead of mounting barbed steedsTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,He capers nimbly in a lady's chamberTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.”

“Nothing could be slow enough, nothing lasts too long. No pleasure could equal, she thought, straightening the chairs, pushing in one book on the shelf, this having done with the triumphs of youth, lost herself in the process of living, to find it with a shock of delight, as the sun rose, as the day sank. Many a time had she gone, at Barton when they were all talking, to look at the sky; seen it between peoples shoulders at dinner; seen it in London when she could not sleep. She walked to the window.”