I read *old* novels. The reason is simple. I prefer proper endings.

One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else.

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same.

Fate, at first so amenable, so reasonable, so open to negotiation, ends up by exacting a cruel revenge for happiness.

opening the book, i inhaled. the smell of old books, so sharp, so dry you can taste it.

I read *old* novels. The reason is simple. I prefer proper endings.

Prescription: 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, til end of course.