"Reading the great works allows one to grapple with the big questions of life vicariously. When one begins, one enters into a great conversation that has been ongoing for centuries. I might have come late to the party, but I’m at the party."
Susannah Pearce
"One of my life's greatest tragedies is to have already read Pickwick Papers. I can't go back and read it for the first time."
George Orwell
Just so! I read it around 1966. I remember laughing so hard I well nigh had a heart attack.
George Washington - Indispensable Man
"In effect, there were two distinct creative moments in the American Founding, the winning of independence and the invention of nationhood, and Washington was the central figure in both creations."
Joseph J. Ellis
"It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour and fictitious benevolence."
Samuel Johnson
