“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.”

Critics kind never mind! Critics flatter no matter! Critics blame all the same! Do your best damn the rest!

His Ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be.

A dog reflects the family life.

Some people’s affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.

No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

I dislike my fellow-mortals. Justice compels me to add that they appear for the most part to dislike me.

Love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things.

There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.

The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name.

The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.

The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed.

Through reading, I escaped the bad parts of my life in the South Bronx. And, through books, I got to travel the world and the universe. It, to me, was a passport out of my childhood and it remains a way – through the power of words – to change the world.

I just downloaded eleven hundred books onto my Kindle, and now I can’t lift it.

Endeavor to have always in your hand a pious book, that with this shield you may defend yourself against bad thoughts.

I am writing a book. So far I have the pages numbered.

Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life.

My philosophy is that I’m an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.