Somehow, irresistibly, the prime thing was: nothing mattered. Life in the end seemed a prank of such size you could only stand off at this end of the… - Ray Bradbury

“I learned long ago you lean one way, me and the other. You were always wrong, I was always right. I hate liars.”
“‘Optimists’ is the word you want.”
“No wonder I hate you. The world’s a cesspool and you keep swimming in it, heading for shore. Dear God, where is the shore? You’ll never find it because the shore doesn’t exist! We’re rats drowning in a sewer, but you see lighthouses where there are none. You claim the Titanic is Mark Twain’s steamboat. To you Svengali, Raskolnikov, and Hitler were the Three Stooges! I feel sorry for you. So I’m here to make you honest.”
“Since when have you believed in honesty?”
“Honesty, currency, and common sense. Never play funhouse slot machines, don’t toss red-hot pennies to the poor, or throw your landlady downstairs. Fine futures? Hell, the future’s now, and it’s rotten.”

A book is a loaded gun in the house next door...Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?

..holding a book but reading the empty spaces.