No doubt most of you think biography dull reading. You would much rather sit down with a good story. But have you ever thought what a story is? It is nothing but a bit of make-believe biography. – Burton E. Stevenson, A Guide to Biography for Young Readers: American — Me

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

There are books from which one inhales an exquisite air. – Joseph Joubert (1754–1824), translated from French by George H. Calvert, 1