It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead.

He felt about books as doctors feel about medicines, or managers about plays—cynical, but hopeful.

—Dame Rose Macaulay

At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.

—Dame Rose Macaulay

It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.

—Dame Rose Macaulay

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

—Cicero

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.

—Christopher Morley

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.

—Charles W. Eliot

I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage.

—Charles De Secondat

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

—Charles Caleb Colton