I wish you hadn't been so over-courteous about putting the inscription on a card instead of on the flyleaf. It's the bookseller coming out in you all, you were afraid you'd decrease its value. You would have increased it for the present owner. (And possibly for the future owner. I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.)

Hollywood isn't a place, it's a way of life.

I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.

It's against my principles to buy a book I haven't read, it's like buying a dress you haven't tried on.

I personally can't think of anything less sacrosanct than a bad book or even a mediocre book.

Talent is the infinite capacity for taking pains. Genius is the infinite capacity for achievement without taking any pains at all.

I liked reading about the nun who ate so dainty with her fingers she never dripped any grease on herself. I've never been able to make that claim and I use a fork.