“I mean your borrowers of books - those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.”

“There is absolutely no such thing as reading but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry arbours, but it was labor thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like so many coquets, that will have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writers digests his meditations. By the same light we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour.”

“A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins.”

“'That Enough Is As Good As a Feast'...The inventor of [this saying] did not believe it himself....Goodly legs and shoulders of mutton, exhilarating cordials, books, pictures, the opportunities of seeing foreign countries, independence, heart's ease, a man's own time to himself, are not muck — however we may be pleased to scandalise with that appellation the faithful metal that provides them for us.”

“I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading.”

“Don't introduce me to that man! I want to go on hating him, and I can't hate a man whom I know.”

“I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.”