“Books are solitudes in which we meet.”

“Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other.”

“Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.”

“I don't suffer much from solitude in the evenings. I spring upon my books. I always spoke a good word for solitude, and it is grateful to me. Books ward off the ghastly thoughts.”

“our lives change in two ways :through the people we meet and the books we read”

“Books are the greatest and the most satisfactory of recreations. I mean the use of books for pleasure. Without books, without having acquired the power of reading for pleasure, none of us can be independent, but if we can read we have a sure defence against boredom in solitude.”

“Only in books the flat and final happens,
Only in dreams we meet and interlock….”

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours … In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

“If we knew all our need, what a large want book we should require! How comforting to know that Jesus has a supply book which exactly meets our want book. We want the vision of a calmer and simpler beauty, to tranquillize us in the midst of artificial tastes — we want the draught of a pure spring to cool the flame of our excited life; we want, in other words, the spirit of the life of Christ, simple, natural, with power to soothe and calm the feelings which it rouses; the fullness of the spirit which can never intoxicate.”

“That inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.”