Alan

“Thus it is that no cruelty whatsoever passes by without impact. Thus it is that we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“Nevertheless we cherish all books, especially the unread ones, for who knows what secrets they might yield one day?
—p.397, as by Larry Zagorski, in his short story "The City of the Sun”
― Jake Arnott, The House of Rumour

“Bernard Berenson once said that the formation of the great library he assembled at I Tatti was his greatest achievement. I feel much the same way about the library (as distinct from the bookshop) that I’ve put together in Archer City. The collection—or, more properly, the accumulation—now numbers about 28,000 volumes. If I were beamed up tomorrow my library would attest to the fact that a reader had once been there.

-- "On Rereading," NYRB July 14, 2005”
― Larry McMurtry

“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings”
― John Gillespie MaGee Jr.