“Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.”

"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Source: The New Life

Dedication to Emma Goldman

Interview with Max Eastman in Harper's Magazine, as quoted in James Joyce (1959) by Richard Ellmann. Eastman noted "He smiled as he said that — smiled, and then repeated it."

Compare: "Of all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company. And all the harm e'er I've done, Alas! it was to none but me." The Parting Glass.
Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), Restless Farewell

Source: The Hero of Ages

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)
Context: I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read—and that’s a lot of books these days. If I weren’t out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity—because you can hardly mention anything I’m not curious about.

Chapter 11, paragraph 59 http://www.uri.edu/library/inscriptions/almamater.html

On Life, on his time at school.
Notes from a library bar (2006)

As quoted in C.S. Lewis (1963), by Roger Lancelyn Green, p. 9