Christopher Morley Quotes

La notte ha una mistica affinità con la letteratura.

There is no one so grateful as the man to whom you have given just the book his soul needed and he never knew it. - Roger Mifflin

When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue — you sell him a whole new life.

It is so easy to let life go by us in its swift amusing course, that sometimes it hardly seems worthwhile to attempt any bold strokes for truth. Truth, of course, does not need assistance; it can afford to ignore our errors. But in this quiet place, among the whisper of the trees, I seem to have heard a disconcerning sound. I have heard laughter, and I think it is the laughter of God.

The fact that Holmes had earlier lodgings in Montague Street (alongside the British Museum) is forgotten. That was before Watson and we must have Watson too.

People need books, but they don't know they need them. Generally they are not aware that the books they need are in existence. - Roger Mifflin

Non esiste in astratto un buon libro: un libro è buono soltanto quando appaga una fame umana, o confuta qualche umano errore.

The level sun, warily peering over the edge like a cautious marksman, fired golden volleys unerringly at him. At once Gissing was aware and watchful. Brief truce was over: the hopeless war with Time began anew.

Il mondo ha stampato libri per 450 anni, eppure la polvere da sparo ha tuttora una più larga diffusione. Non importa! L'inchiostro da stampa è il più grande esplosivo: vincerà.

Night, I have discovered, has a faintly bitter taste, caused by its large ingredient of Un-attained Possibility.

The people in books become more real to you than any one in actual life.

He was willing to wait until the last dollar was broken: in the meantime he was content. You never know the soul of a city, he said, until you are down on your luck. Now, he felt, he had been here long enough to understand her.

That's the terrible hypnotism of war, the brute mass-impulse, the pride and national spirit, the instinctive simplicity of men that makes them worship what is their own above everything else. I've thrilled and shouted with patriotic pride, like everyone else. Music and flags and men marching in step have bewitched me, as they do all of us. And then I've gone home and sworn to root this evil instinct out of my soul. God help — let's love the world, love humanity — not just our own country! -

He was so busy that he did not even have time to think of his pipe, or the morning paper. At last, just before lunch, he found a breathing space. He sat down in the study to rest his legs, and looked for the Times. It was not in its usual place on his reading table. At that moment the puppies woke up, and he ran out to attend them. He would have been distressed if he had known that Fuji had the paper in the kitchen, and was studying the HELP WANTED columns.

That's the kind of thing that will wake you up in the middle of the night. I don't want to have a night with any middle