Jacob's Room

“anyone who’s worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.”

“Every face, every shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture feverishly turned--in search of what? It is the same with books. What do we seek through millions of pages?”

“What's the use trying to read Shakespeare, especially in one of those little paper editions whose pages get ruffled, or stuck together with sea-water?”

“When the body escaped mutilation, seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred.”

“I like books whose virtue is all drawn together in a page or two. I like sentences that don't budge though armies cross them.”

“Indeed there has never been any explanation of the ebb and flow in our veins--of happiness and unhappiness.”

“It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow-creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Ei...”