“Judging books by their covers is seriously underrated, and any book nerd who claims never to have done it is probably lying.”

“Every time I hear about somebody who wins a never-work-again sum in the lottery but keeps his or her day job I think, not a book person.”

“Sence and Sensibility, for instance, came out in three separate volumes, as did Pride and Prejudice (so the next time you read one of the ubiquitous time-travel Austen adaptations and somebody picks up a single-volume first edition, you can hit your nerd buzzer and say "wrong!").”

“But as Austen delineates so clearly, you can't stop people from making assumptions if they're so inclined. You can only do your best to show your character through your actions and hope that other people will be capable of forming sound opinions. And if you're a realist like Austen, you'll also be wise enough to realize how many people aren't up to it.”

“I don't fear death--I fear dying before I've read Dickens end to end.”

“There's a mathematics to nesting, I'm sure, that explains how length of stay + space available = accumulating way too much stuff.”

“A brick can be used to represent the zero probability of this book being any good.”