Tamahome

“J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.”
― Terry Pratchett

“The re-reader is looking not for actual surprises (which can come only once) but for a certain ideal surprisingness. The point has often been misunderstood.”
― C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature

“And what are you reading, Miss?"
"Oh!" it is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“The word "radical," incidentally, originally referred to the juice in fruits and vegetables, the moisture provided through the root (radix in Latin). It later came to mean the essence or substance of things. Radical does not mean "far out," but, rather, "far in.”
― Marilyn Ferguson, forward to Radical Honesty