“Despite our enormous brains and jam-packed libraries, we germ hotels cannot expect to understand absolutely everything.”

“On the flip side of everything we think we absolutely have pegged lurks an equal amount of the unknown. Understanding is but the sum of our misunderstandings.”

“Our senses are woefully limited. Our brains are but tiny candles flickering in an infinity of darkness. Our only wisdom is to admit that we cannot understand, and since we cannot understand we must do the best we can with faith. which is our only talent. The greatest act of faith we are capable of is that of loving another more than we love ourselves, and occasionally we can be quite good at it.”

“Reading is at the center of our lives. The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization.”

“Whatever we cannot understand easily we call God; this saves wear and tear on the brain tissues.”

“I'd like to be born the son of a duke with 90,000 pounds a year, on an enormous estate.... And I'd like to have the most enormous library, and I'd like to think that I could read those books forever and forever, and die unlamented, unknown, unsung, unhonored - and packed with information.”