“Longfellow smiled. "A great part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, my dear Lowell, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.”

“I don't like my birthday. I don't like things that are directed towards me. It took me a long time to get over people asking me to write my name in the book.”

“My high school English teacher in junior year, Dr. Robert Parsons, assigned us some Poe stories, including 'The Black Cat' and 'The Purloined Letter.' Being an animal person, I had trouble with 'The Black Cat!' I got hooked instead by 'The Purloined Letter,' a Poe story with detective C. Auguste Dupin.”

“A man's library opens up his character to the world.”

“Avoid the Holy Grail, the heroic journeys, the pursuit of a legend--that is not the life of the bookaneer, who must keep his eyes on the ground while other book people live by dreaming.”

“People hate the idea of politicians, you see, but love the idea of authors, at least until they meet one.”

“Though an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print”

“exaggeration is the octopus of the English language”

“These writers take the essence of every person around them, turn them into books and stories without permission or even a simple thank-you, and want all the credit and glory for themselves.”

“A man was leaning idly against an elm. ... The man, who towered over the poet even at his slanting angle, too old for a student and too worn for a faculty member, stared at him with the familiar, insatiable gleam of the literary admirer.”

“Books inspire a man to embrace the world or flee it. They start wars and end them. They make the men and women who write and publish them vast fortunes, and nearly as quickly can drive them into madness and despair. Stay away from what you do not fathom from now on...”