Ann Beatty

“Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“To rage and mock is gentlemanly, to grumble and whine is not.”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard

“But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.”
― Plutarch

“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them; but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims