“The House Was Quiet and the World Was CalmThe house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page, Wanted to lean, wanted much to be The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom The summer night is like a perfection of thought. The house was quiet because it had to be. The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind: The access of perfection to the page. And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world, In which there is no other meaning, itself Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself Is the reader leaning late and reading there.”

“The reader became the book; and summer nightWas like the conscious being of the book.”

“This book is intended for calm readers.”

“We've been quiet, woman. We've taken yoru presence in this house like calm good little boys, but we're not good little boys”

“The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.”

“It is not everyday that the world arranges itself into a poem.”

“The job of the first eight pages is not to have the reader want to throw the book at the wall, during the first eight pages.”