“So Bertrand Russell once said to me that the pupil in school should study whatever he liked. I asked whether this was not a crime against the pupil. … Should he be allowed to grow up without knowing Shakespeare? … Lord Russell replied that he would require a boy to read one play of Shakespeare; if he did not like it, he should not be compelled to read any more.”

“Dionysius the Elder, being asked whether he was at leisure, he replied, "God forbid that it should ever befall me!"”

“A writer should read until he is filled to the brim and like a pitcher which is over-filled over flows. And then he should write.”

“I think that the reader should enrich what he is reading. He should misunderstand the text; he should change it into something else.”

“I mean, it's so hard to make Russell Crowe look like he got in a fight.”

“But in my homeboys' high school, it's not like that. They don't have trips to go see this Broadway play, they don't read things we read. They didn't know when I was like: "Yo, Shakespeare's dope."”

“"He" should be read as "he or she" throughout the book.”

“You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?"I said. To myself.”

“He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more then his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men, he should have knowne no more than other men.”

“So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.”