“The selection of a book-plate is such a serious matter.”

Gilbert White discovered the formula for complete happiness, but he died before making the announcement, leaving it for me to do so. It is to be very busy with the unimportant.

As life tends to become more and more distracting, let us firmly hold on to books.

The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity.

One day puss did not take his place punctually, but presently appeared with two mice, one of which it placed on its master’s plate, the other on its own.

A gentleman had a favourite cat whom he taught to sit at the dinner table where it behaved very well. He was in the habit of putting any scraps he left onto the cat’s plate.

I would go swaggering into restaurants in some ridiculous tramp disguise, challenging them to mistreat me, order the things I was least likely to enjoy, then hurl my plate aside in a fury and demand to see the manager.

Phil Niekro and his brother were pitching against each other in Atlanta. Their parents were sitting right behind home plate.

Hawai’i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a ‘mixed plate’—a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi.

Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.

Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them lose their individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely ‘local’ cuisine.

Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God… and where can you go from there?