"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."
— Terry Pratchett (Diggers)

"A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read."
— Terry Pratchett (Guards! Guards!)

"There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope."
— Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
— Oscar Wilde

"An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."
— Stephen Fry

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
— Dr. Seuss

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells."
— Dr. Seuss

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
— Dr. Seuss

"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever."
— Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)

"Fairy tales, are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated."
— G.K. Chesterton

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Pope! Um, I'll come in again..."
— Graham Chapman

"cake or death?"
— Eddie Izzard

"You see, I don't belive that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, that has been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians."
— Graham Chapman

"If I had a large amount of money I should certainly found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases and yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily about our ears."
— Stephen Fry (Paperweight)

"It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue."
— Stephen Fry

"Compromise is a stalling between two fools."
— Stephen Fry

"Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because sometimes they take a rest."
— Alexandre Dumas

"Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy"
— Alexandre Dumas

"As a general rule...people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it."
— Alexandre Dumas

"One's work may be finished someday, but one's education never."
— Alexandre Dumas

"A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself."
— Alexandre Dumas

"...but my friends call me Edmund Dantes."
— Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)

"All generalizations are dangerous, even this one."
— Alexandre Dumas

"All for one and one for all."
— Alexandre Dumas

"Life seems nothing more than a quick succession of busy nothings."
— Jane Austen

"They seek him here, they seek him there
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere
Is he in heaven or is he in hell?
That demned elusive Pimpernel "
— Baroness Emmuska Orczy

"Randall laid his hand on Stella's, but only to remove it from his sleeve. "My precious, you really must have some regard for my clothes," he said with gentle reproach. "Much as I love you, I cannot permit you to maul this particular coat." "
— Georgette Heyer (Behold, Here's Poison)

"There is no love sincerer than the love of food."
— George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman)

"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."
— George Bernard Shaw

"The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me."
— George Bernard Shaw

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
— Groucho Marx

"Crawley, I do trust that you have rung that bell, for if I stand in this disagreeable wind you know I shall take cold, and my colds always descend upon my chest. How thoughtless it was in you to have handed me down from the chaise until the door had been opened! Ah, here is that deplorable henchman! Yes, Barrow, it is I indeed. Take my hat – no, Crawley had best take my hat, perhaps. And yet, if he does so, who is to assist me out of my greatcoat? How difficult all these arrangements are! Ah, a happy thought! You have laid my hat down, Crawley! I do not know where I should be without you. Now my coat, and pray be careful! Where is a mirror? Crawley, you cannot have been so foolish as to have packed all my hand-mirrors! No I thought not: hold it a little higher, I beg of you, and give me my comb! Yes, that will serve, Barrow, you may announce me to your mistress!"
— Georgette Heyer (The Reluctant Widow)

"'They don't hang dukes, darling. He'd be let off by reason of insanity. Everyone knows the upper classes are batty.'"
— Rhys Bowen (Her Royal Spyness)

"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it."
— Terry Pratchett

"The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it."
— Terry Pratchett (Jingo)

"You're only a man! You've not our gifts! I can tell you! Why, a woman can think of a hundred different things at once, all them contradictory!"
— Georgette Heyer (Powder and Patch)

"It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner."
— Georgette Heyer (April Lady)

"I feel an almost overwhelming interest in the methods of daylight abduction employed by the modern youth."
— Georgette Heyer (Devil's Cub)

"The Viscount stepped into the room. "Came to see if you was dead," he said. "Laid Pom odds you weren't."
Lethbridge passed his hand across his eyes. "I'm not," he replied in a faint voice.
"No. I'm sorry," said the Viscount simply. He wandered over to the table and sat down. "Horry said she killed you, Pom said So she might, I said No. Nonsense."
Lethbridge still holding a hand to his aching head tried to pull himself together. "Did you?" he said. His eyes ran over his self invited guest. "I see. Let me assure you once more that I am very much alive."
"Well I wish you'd put your wig on," complained the Viscount. "What I want to know is why did Horry hit you on the head with a poker?"
Lethbridge gingerly felt his bruised scalp. "With a poker was it? Pray ask her, though I doubt if she will tell you."
"You shouldn't keep the front door open," said the Viscount. "What's to stop people coming in and hitting you over the head? It's preposterous."
"I wish you'd go home," said Lethbridge wearily.
The Viscount surveyed the supper-table with a knowing eye.
"Card-party?" he inquired."
— Georgette Heyer (The Convenient Marriage)