Books are, let's face it, better than everything else. If we played Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time.

I'm still not a very good white wine, but I'm drinkable - you could put me in a punch, anyway.

We're here for such a short amount of time. Why do we spend any of it building sandcastles?

What harm has he ever done to you?' 'You know what harm he's done me. He offended me with his terrible taste.

[...] falling in love with someone beautiful and intelligent and the rest of it, then feeling like a blank twit put you at something of a disadvantage.

I burst into tears and I cry and cry until it feels as though it is not salt and water being squeezed from my eyes, but blood.

Where would David Copperfield be if Dickens had gone to writing classes? Probably about seventy minor characters short, is where. (Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen thousand characters? Thirteen thousand! The population of a small town!)