“What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses like they're trophies. What do you need it for after you read it?”

“Life's harder, the deeper you feel things, was all I could think as I put the books away. Feelings, who needs them? Sometimes they're like a gift, when you feel love or happiness. Sometimes they're a curse.”

“Do you have the poems of Han-shan in your house?
They're better for you than sutra reading!
Write them out and paste them on a screen
Where you can glance over them from time to time”

“The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property.”

“[On libraries] What's great about them is that anybody can go into them and find a book and borrow it free of charge and read it. They don't have to steal it from a bookshop… You know when you're young, you're growing up, they're almost sexually exciting places because books are powerhouses of knowledge, and therefore they're kind of slightly dark and dangerous. You see books that kind of make you go 'Oh!”

“I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.”

“What kind of life can you have in a house without books?”

“If you can read and have more imagination than a doorknob, what need do you have for a 'movie version' of a novel?”

““What was all that about?”
“It’s an occupational hazard… You start by reading books, and you end by loving them.””

“Don't run after anyone.
Be Yourself.
Do what you do best.
Be true to yourself.
Have good karma.
The right people will come your way eventually
and remain in your life.
Friendship on the onset is like a seed.
It is what you put into it that makes it
grow beautifully into a thriving
flower.”