Books have their idiosyncrasies as well as people, and will not show me their full beauties unless the place and time in which they are read suits them.

Reading was very important; the proper exercise and development of one's mind was a paramount duty.

... Why, it would really be being unselfish to go away and be happy for a little, because we would come back so much nicer.

What a blessing it is to love books. Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden.

But it is impossible, I find, to tidy books without ending by sitting on the floor in the middle of a great untidiness and reading.

[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.

If one believed in angels one would feel that they must love us best when we are asleep and cannot hurt each other; and what a mercy it is that once in every twenty-four hours we are too utterly weary to go on being unkind.