“Guilty, Your Honor, but only of minor transgressions. My motto is, 'Let no girl, no gun, no cards, no violins, no dress, no tobacco, no laziness keep you from your books.”

“Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life.”

“Art is amoral; so is life. For me there are no obscene pictures or books; there are only poorly conceived and poorly executed ones.”

“Only now, years after having read though the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Scott, Poe, Balzac did he realise that even the most prolific writer created only one novel; throw away the individual bindings and the whole of each man's writing constituted one book: the true and complete portrait of himself. An artist had one thing to say, and one only; he might flail about, seek new techniques, forms, colour combinations, subjects, but intrinsically he would always paint the same canvas, write the same book.”

“It's freezing up here. What did you use to keep warm?""Indignation," said Michelangelo. "Best fuel I know. Never burns out.”

“I do not know a better cure for mental illness than a book.”

“There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books.”