“A very useful book might be written with the sole object of advising what parts of what books should be read. It should not be a book of elegant extracts, but should merely refer to the passages which are advised to be read. It might also indicate what are the chief works upon any given subject. For example, take rent; the important passages in Adam Smith, Ricardo, Jones, Mill, and other writers, should be referred to.”

“She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it.”

“We should read much, we should not read many books.”
Multum legendum esse, non multa.

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”

“You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.”

“Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”

“Surely it is more honourable to do great things, than to speak or read great things!…When a Christian has one eye upon his book, the other should be looking up to heaven for a blessing upon what he reads.”

“I hope, for your sake, that you have not chosen to read this book because you are in the mood for a pleasant experience. If this is the case, I advise you to put this book down instantaneously, because of all the books describing the unhappy lives of the Baudelaire orphans, The Miserable Mill might be the unhappiest yet. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are sent to Paltryville to work in a lumber mill, and they find disaster and misfortune lurking behind every log.”

“The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.”

“To take another simile [that the brain is like a machine], if we imagine a great library containing books which have a vast number of cross references one to another, then should one whole shelf be burned, it might be possible to reconstruct the lost books -- but somewhat less perfectly than at first.”