“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.”

“Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself.”

“Like most uneducated Englishwomen, I like reading--I like reading books in the bulk.”

“A fine gentleman like that, they said, had no need of books. Let him leave books, they said, to the palsied or the dying. But worse was to come. For once the disease of reading has laid hold upon the system it weakens it so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing.”

“One must own that there are certain books which can be read without the mind and without the heart, but still with considerable enjoyment.”

“Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.”

“Think of me, the uneducated child reading books in my room at 22 Hyde Park Gate -- now advanced to this glory... Yes; all that reading, I say, has borne this odd fruit. And I am pleased.”