In spite of all the refinements of society that conspired to make art the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Fragonards canvases beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden.

The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions-there we have none.

Virginia Woolf, How Should One R

Most bad books get that way because their authors are engaged in trying to justify themselves. If a vain author is an alcoholic, then the most sympathetically portrayed character in his book will be an alcoholic. This sort of thing is very boring for outsiders.

Stephen Vizinczey

Throw your arms around the world and hold on tight. But not through fear ...but because of your love.

Rasheed Ogunlaru

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

Thomas Jefferson

It's funny, though, speaking of fathers and sons, because me and John Goodman played father and son, like, five or six years ago in the film 'Death Sentence,' and I got back with him again in 'Inside Llewyn Davis.'

Garrett Hedlund

He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

As if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. Since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely.

Cassandra Clare

Many people have the idea that game shows are easy to come up with. And nothing could be further from the truth.

Bob Barker

I don't watch a huge amount of telly. I read a lot. I'm reading at the moment 'Freedom,' by Jonathan Franzen, a great big brick of a book, and I'm loving it.

Nick Clegg

I have stitched life into me like a rare organ

Sylvia Plath

And regardless of the fact that in this country, certainly in the arts, we treat comedy as a second-class citizen, I've never thought of it that way. I've always thought it to be important. The last time I looked, the Greeks were holding up two masks. I've always thought of it not only as having equal value, but as the craft of it, being funny.

Jeff Daniels

The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.

William R. Alger