Alice James

“What sense of superiority it gives one to escape reading some book which every one else is reading.”

“If I can get on to my sofa and occupy myself for four hours, at intervals through the day, scribbling my notes, and able to read the books that belong to me, in that they clarify the density, and shape the formless mass within, life seems inconceivably rich...”

“Who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?”

“It is so comic to hear oneself called old, even at ninety I suppose!”

“One has a greater sense of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.”