Any belief worth having must survive doubt
As centuries of dictators have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule; since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it has been acquired, the second-best recourse is to limit its scope.
Old or new, the only sign I always try to rid my books of (usually with little success) is the price-sticker that malignant booksellers attach to the backs. These evil white scabs rip off with difficulty, leaving leprous wounds and traces of slime to which adhere the dust and fluff of ages, making me wish for a special gummy hell to which the inventor of these stickers would be condemned.
The starting point is a question.
In any of my pages in any of my books may life a perfect account of my secret experience of the world.
Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers.
reading is at the beginning of the social contract
Lonely men seek companionship. Lonely women sit at home and wait. They never meet.
As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
Over the last fifteen years, every single person the U. S. has tried to extradite from Sweden has been extradited, and they refuse to provide a guarantee [that won't happen].
A friend of mine says his two favorite artists are Picasso and Rembrandt. Picasso because he paints the beautiful in such an ugly fashion. And Rembrandt because he paints the ugly so beautifully.