Gleanings from My Readings

“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”
---Jane Austen, in Persuasion

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“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, nothing more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
---Lewis Carroll

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“One can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s personality. Good prose is like a window pane.”
---George Orwell

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“A book is still [an] incredibly lovely, respectable gift.”
---Jamie Raab, publisher

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“It took me a long time, into my sixties, to own my own narrative.”
---Jane Fonda

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“I think that people have not been reading for the past year because they’ve been checking political blogs every 20 minutes. At some point, I think people are going to say, ‘You know what, this is not nourishing.’ I think and I hope—and maybe it’s just blind hope—I think there is a yearning for authenticity out there, and people are going to go back to the things that really matter, and one of those things, I hope, will be reading books.”
---Larry Weissman, literary agent

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“Barn’s burnt down—
Now I can see the moon.”
---Masahide (17th century Japanese poet)

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Happy Reading!