“I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn.”

“I have told many, yet when I go down that last trail, I know there will be a thousand stories hammering at my skull, demanding to be told.”

“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.”

“. . . What do you wish to be? What would you like to become?”I did not know, and I told her so, but the question worried me. Should I know?“There is time,” she said, “but the sooner you know, the sooner you can plan. To have a goal is the important thing, and to work toward it. Then, if you decide you wish to do something different, you will at least have been moving, you will have been going somewhere, you will have been learning.”

“Often I hear people say they do not have time to read. That's absolute nonsense. If one really wants to learn, one has to decide what is important. Spending an evening on the town? Attending a ball game? Or learning something that can be with you your life long.”

“After a few days, I mused, I would have no trouble. Whoever heard of a revolution of fat men?”

“Womenfolks have powerful imaginations when it comes to a man, an’ she can read things into him he never knew was there, and like as not, they ain’t!”