“I need words and print... I need print like an addict. I could live without it, perhaps. But I hope I never have to try.”

“Live and invent. I have tried. I must have tried. Invent. It is not the word. Neither is to live. No matter. I have tried. [...] I say living without knowing what it is. I tried to live without knowing what I was trying. Perhaps I have lived afterall, without knowing.”

“I hope you find someone you can't live without.I really do. And I hope you never have to know what it's like to have to try and live without them.”

“This building fool could only be Bess of Hardwicke, a woman whose name is seldom seen in print without the word “redoubtable” in front of it. I wondered if anyone ever called her redoubtable to her face. I redoubted it.”

“Some day, as soon as a book is printed it will be simultaneously put into digital form. That will be a wonderful research tool, but it will never substitute for holding the book. I feel certain that at least within my lifetime, everyone will still be going to the bookstore and buying printed books. Thank God I'll die before I have to worry about whether the printed book itself will disappear. That's something I don't want to live to see.”

“I am a free man―and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me! Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to God alone―if He existed!”