“Read what gives you delight—at least most of the time—and do so without shame. And even if you are that rare sort of person who is delighted chiefl y by what some people call Great Books, don’t make them your steady intellectual diet, any more than you would eat at the most elegant of restaurants every day. It would be too much. Great books are great in part because of what they ask of their readers: they are not readily encountered, easily assessed.”

“Great books are great in part because of what they ask of their readers: they are not readily encountered, easily assessed.”

“The great writers have always been great readers, but that does not mean that they read all the books that, in their day, were listed as the indispensable ones. In many cases, they read fewer books than are now required in most of our colleges, but what they did read, they read well. Because they had mastered these books, they became peers with their authors. They were entitled to become authorities in their own right. In the natural course of events, a good student frequently becomes a teacher, and so, too, a good reader becomes an author.”

“The most unhappy people in the world are those who face the days without knowing what to do with their time. But if you have more projects than you have time for, you are not going to be an unhappy person. This is as much a question of having imagination and curiosity as it is of actually making plans.”

“You did really great up there,” I tell her, because I don’t know how to say what I really want to: that the people you love can surprise you every day. That maybe who we are isn’t so much about what we do, but rather what we’re capable of when we least expect it.”

“Most things cost something you can give up, but they aren’t worth anything – not really, not in the end. But some things . . . some have to be given free, because if you had to put a price on them, their true value would be too great for any one person to afford.”