Parnassus on Wheels

I have always suffered from the feeling that it’s better to read a good book than to write a poor one; and I’ve done so much mixed reading in my time that my mind is full of echoes and voices of better men.

“The art of baking bread is as transcendent a mystery as the art of making sonnets,” said Redbeard.

Calling us men doesn’t make us men. No creature on earth has a right to think himself a human being if he doesn’t know at least one good book. The man that spends every evening chewing Piper Heidsieck at the store is unworthy to catch the intimations of a benevolent Creator. The man that’s got a few good books on his shelf is making his wife happy, giving his children a square deal, and he’s likely to be a better citizen himself.

“Talkers never write. They go on talking.”

“Common sense?” he repeated. “Good Lord, ma’am, sense is the most uncommon thing in the world.

“Judging by the way you talk,” I said, “you ought to be quite a writer yourself.”

I gazed in astonishment at the wizened little rogue. Here was a new side to the amiable idealist! Apparently there was a streak of fearless deviltry in him besides his gentle love of books.

My governess days are pretty far astern now, and my line is common sense rather than literary allusions.

Anyone who can get the country people to read something worth while is doing his nation a real service.

As far as I can see, a man who’s fond of books never need starve!