I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment.

Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.

There is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what everybody does all the time.

All books are doors; and some of them are wardrobes.

Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful.

He gave her his heart. She took it and placed it quietly in the pocket of her gown. No one observed what she did.

He smiles but rarely and watches other men to see when they laugh and then does the same.