“Life is too short to live with any but the greatest books.”

Source: Running Hot

Source: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

Variant: Life is too short, or too long, for me to allow myself the luxury of living it so badly.
Source: Eleven Minutes

On the Mindless Menace of Violence (1968)
Context: Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

http://www.last.fm/user/helena_wanje.

Variant: [I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.
Source: Sense and Sensibility

Apparently an invention by Maurice Sachs; see discussion in Quotes about Proust.
Misattributed

Source: Coningsby, or, The New Generation