Life does often get in the way of one's reading.

My neighbor Alice Pierce is fond of singing folk music to her garden plants. Thinks it makes them grow or something. The Major had often wondered how a wailing rendition of 'Greensleeves' would encourage greater raspberry production but Alice insisted that it worked far better than chemical fertilizers, and she did produce several kinds of fruit in pie-worthy quantitites. No sense of pitch, but plenty of enthusiasm, he added.

I later realized that this is my view of passion: It is rooted in genuine friendship. Chemistry may be two strangers exchanging smoldering looks—but passion has to be able to survive at least a twenty-minute conversation!

Only sometimes when we pick and choose among the rules we discover later that we have set aside something precious in the process.

I tell myself it does not matter what one reads-favorite authors, particular themes-as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.

The world is full of small ignorances. We must all do our best to ignore them and thereby keep them small, don't you think

Passion is all very well, but it wouldn't do to spill the tea.