There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.

All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.

Tragedy alters everything.

A birth is not really a beginning. Our lives at the start are not really our own but only the continuation of someone else's story.

In this cruel world kindness should always be repaid.

Every so often I take out a volume and read a page or two. After all, reading is looking after in a manner of speaking. Though they're not old enough to be valuable for their age alone, nor important enough to be sought after by collectors, my charges are dear to me, even if, as often as not, they are as dull on the inside as on the outside. No matter how banal the contents, there is always something that touches me. For someone now dead once thought these words significant enough to write them down.

People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think of them.