“Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.”

“The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book.”

“Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?”

“There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books.”

“My greatest wish -- other than salvation -- was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time.”

“Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?”

“If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last car he'll ever lay down in front of.”

“…"better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.”

“I am sore wounded but not slain
I will lay me down and bleed a while
And then rise up to fight again”

“A precious place is Paradise and none may know its worth,
But Eden ever longeth for the knicknacks of the earth.”