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

Human beings pay very little attention to what is told them unless they know something about it already.

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.

Mr. Gilbert had the earnest mania for self-improvement which has blighted the lives of so many young men.