No book that is written for an external purpose is going to be a passionately felt book for the writer or the reader. I don't see the point in doing that.

It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.

The heart does not go backward. Only the mind.

When you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.

It was not the brutality of what occurred next that changed my mind and brought home to me the full meaning of fear. It was the brilliance of it.

The problem is simply finding the right person. Ask Plato. Just make sure she finishes your thoughts and you finish hers. That's all you need.

As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.

...History it seemed could be something entirely different a splash of blood whose agony didn't fade overnight or over centuries.

It's funny; in this era of e-mail and voice mail and all those things that even I did not grow up with, a plain old paper letter takes on amazing intimacy.

There is nothing harder, at moments, than talking to someone who has all the power of silence.

...what will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?

The man who trusts other men will make fewer mistakes than he who distrusts them.

Have you had a kindness shown? Pass it on 'Twas not given for thee alone Pass it on Let it travel down the years Let it wipe another's tears Til in Heaven the deed appears - Pass it on.

We have not the time to take our time.

Parents now are concerned about the moral and spiritual diseases. These can have terrible complications when standards and values are abandoned. We must all take protective measures.

God is honored by large, difficult, and impossible requests when we ask, seek, knock, and trust our loving Father always to answer for our good.

Science is an all-pervasive energy, for it is at once a mode of thought, a source of strong emotion, and a faith as fanatical as any in history.

Little boxes made of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same.

Poetry is devil's wine.

The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.

The fear's as bad as falling.