To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries.

They lack suggestive power. And when a book lacks suggestive power, however hard it hits the surface of the mind it cannot penetrate within.

When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.

The history of most women is hidden either by silence, or by flourishes and ornaments that amount to silence.

We live in constant danger of coming apart. The mystery of why we do not always come apart is the animating tension of all art.

Intimacy is a difficult art.

There are moments when one can neither think nor feel, she thought, and if one can neithre feel nor think, where's one?