What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?

No furniture is so charming as books.

There is no greater luxury than meditation. Meditation is the last luxury, because it is the ultimate love affair.

Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music.

No furniture so charming as books.

Gold, silver, jewels, purple garments, houses built of marble, groomed estates, pious paintings, caparisoned steeds, and other things of this kind offer a mutable and superficial pleasure; books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.

Me and a book is a party. Me and a book and a cup of coffee is an orgy.

No furniture is so charming as books, even if you never open them or read a single word.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.

Give me a house furnished with books rather than furniture! Both, if you can, but books at any rate! To spend several days in a friend’s house and hunger for something to read, while you are treading on costly carpets, sitting upon luxurious chairs and sleeping upon down, is as if one were bribing your body for the sake of cheating your mind.

Gold,silver,gems, fine raiment , a marble palace, well-cultivated fields, paintings, a splendidly caparisoned horse such things as these give one nothing more than a mute and superficial pleasure. Books delight us through and through, they converse with us, they give us good advice; they become living and lively companions to us .

Books are my one luxury.

There was a period when I believed stuff meant something. I thought that if you had matching side chairs and a sofa that harmonized and some beautiful lamps to light them you would have a home, that elegance signaled happiness.

For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are our ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.