The best moments in reading are when you come across something-a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things-which you had thought unique and particular to you.  Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead.  And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.  –Alan Bennett

A great book should leave you…
slightly exhausted at the end.
You live several lives while reading it.
William Styron

Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice:  reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head.  –Paul Auster

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.  –Anna Quindlen

Through the use of books, I had the whole world at my feet, could travel anywhere, meet anyone, and do anything.  –Benjamin Carson

Books, I found, had the power to make time stand still, retreat, or fly into the future.  –Jim Bishop

laughter

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.  Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.  It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.  Which is what I do.  And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.  –Dr. Seuss

Laughter can be more satisfying than honor,
More precious than money,
More heart-cleansing than prayer.
Harriet Rochlin

If you’re going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.  –Marie Osmond

He who laughs, lasts.
Mary Poole

grandma?

Youth is not a time of life;  it is a state of mind;  it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees;  it is  a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions;  it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease.  This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20.  Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.  We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living.  In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station;  so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.  –Samuel Ullman

normal day

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens.  If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy.  If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time.
If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.  –Andy Rooney

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.
Mary Jean Irion

I am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it rains.  One may keep snug and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of loveliness.  –Adiline Knapp