Books, books, books!I had found the secret of a garret roomPiled high with cases in my father’s name;Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and outAmong the giant fossils of my past,Like some small nimble mouse between the ribsOf a mastodon, I nibbled here and thereAt this or that box, pulling through the gap,In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,The first book first. And how I felt it beatUnder my pillow, in the morning’s dark,An hour before the sun would let me read!My books!

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.

I am one who could have forgotten the plague, listening to Boccaccio's stories; and I am not ashamed of it.

It is rather whenWe gloriously forget ourselves, and plungeSoul-forward, headlong, into a book’s profound,Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth—’Tis then we get the right good from a book.

Books succeed; and lives fail.