Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it. G. K. Chesterton
English author & mystery novelist (1874 - 1936) The world is so constructed, that if you wish to enjoy its pleasures, you must also endure its pains. Whether you like it or not, you cannot have one without the other. Swami Brahnmananda Analysis kills spontaneity. Henri-Frederic Amiel One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct. Sterne Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself. If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend rather than the gloss of a sweet lipped flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness. Francis Quarles
English poet (1592 - 1644) No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
English letter author & poet (1689 - 1762) Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves. Dorothy Parker
US author, humorist, poet, & wit (1893 - 1967) One of the amusements of idleness is reading without the fatigue of attention, and the world, therefore, swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied but to be read. Johnson The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting of an old one. James Goldsmith If the riches of the Indies, or the crowns of all the kingdom of Europe, were laid at my feet in exchange for my love of reading, I would spurn them all. Francois Fenelon | 
