“A life without once reading Hamlet is like a life spent in a coal mine.”

“...imagine anybody having lived forty-five or fifty years without knowing Hamlet! One might as well spend one's life in a coal mine.”

“As a reviewer once told me, the story of Alexander’s tomb without a body is like Hamlet without the Prince…. The rest is silence.”

“So that was how I spent nine months of my life. I felt like I was pregnant, except instead of giving life, I was wasting mine.”

“The problem with a life spent reading is you know too much.”

“There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.”