Words worth keeping

That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.

That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.

Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head.

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.

Resist much, obey little.

Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.