“A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.”

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”

“But you have read Madame Bovary?' (I'd never heard of her books.) 'No.”

“If you’re in your life, chance. Viewed from the outside, like a book you’re reading, it’s fate all the way.”

“It's true, reading too many novels makes you go blind.”

“Problem was, all this is new. In English at school we study a grammar book by a man named Ronald Rideout, read Cider with Rosie, do debates on fox-hunting and memorize ‘I Must Go Down to the Seas Again’ by Jason Masefield. We don’t have to actually think about stuff.”

“She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.”