Mitticus

“War’s never a winning thing, Charlie. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms. All I remember is a lot of losing and sadness and nothing good but the end of it. The end of it, Charles, that was a winning all to itself, having nothing to do with guns. But I don’t suppose that’s the kind of victory you boys mean for me to talk on.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

“I shall ever despise the man who can be gratified by the passion which he never wished to inspire, nor solicited the avowal of.”
― Jane Austen, Lady Susan

“Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books one does not discover how bad the majority of them are. In much more than nine cases out of ten the only objectively truthful criticism would be “This book is worthless”, while the truth about the reviewer’s own reaction would probably be “This book does not interest me in any way, and I would not write about it unless I were paid to.”
― George Orwell, All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

“Arden was always the person I loved and trusted the most.
"She would read to me. That's all we ever did. She'd read, and I'd listen, and it was magic. When we were together, it didn't matter what was happening with my parents, at school, or with anything else. I didn't matter. I didn't exist. Arden's words were so much better than the numbers in my head. They could take me places better than anything I'd ever dreamed of. I wanted to read all those books so bad, and I couldn't do it. I tried and tried and tried, and I couldn't do it. But it was okay, because Arden could, and she always took me with her.”
― Kate Scott, Counting to D