No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. – Mary Wortley Montagu

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading. – Logan Pearsall Smith, Trivia, 1917

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution — such call I good books. – Henry David Thoreau

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. – Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991