"Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one."
— Augustine Birrell

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
— Thomas Paine

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

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."
— Herm Albright

"So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."
— Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)

"Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
— P.J. O'Rourke

"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."
— Oscar Wilde

"Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone."
— C.S. Lewis

"The world was hers for the reading."
— Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)

"I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915."
— Laurie R. King

"I am selfish, private and easily bored. Will this be a problem?"
— Neil Gaiman (A Study in Emerald)

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey)

"Here’s the thing… I’ve already gone crazy once. I know what my limits are."
— Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse)

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
— E.B. White

"I'm here . . . which roughly translated means I would rather die than stay away from you. I'm an idiot."
— Stephenie Meyer (Twilight)

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."
— Charles W. Eliot