“Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.”

“Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.”

“I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

“If books are not good company, where shall I find it?”

“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.”

“Those who don't read good books have no advantage over those who can't.”