[R]eading time is still limited no matter how many commitments of work or friendship I am willing to ditch in favor of the pages. – Francis Spufford (b.1964), “Confessions of an English Fiction Eater,” The Child

Classics are not classics because hoary with age — they are the steel balls which have worn down mountains but remained unchanged in the mill of time. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)

If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor. – W. H. Auden