“Rest, nature, books, music…such is my idea of happiness.”

“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor -- such is my idea of happiness. And then, on the top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps -- what more can the heart of man desire?”

“It bewildered Ig, the idea that a person could not be interested in music. It was like not being interested in happiness.”

“My aversion from music rests on political grounds.”

“I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter in all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both.”

“Love is pretty much a decision anyway. Just like happiness. You can decide to either love someone or not, be happy or not. The rest is just commitment to the idea.”

“My soul found ease and rest in the companionship of books.”

“Music is my mother and my father; it is my work and my rest… my blood… my compass… my love…”

“Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.”

“Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness.”