The Moment A Book Is Lent I

Travel Is Like Adultery: One Is Always Tempted To Be Unfaithful To One's Own Country. To Have Imagination Is Inevitably To Be Dissatisfied With Where You Live. There Is In Men, As Peter Quennell Said, "a Centrifugal Tendency." In Our Wanderlust, We Are Lovers Looking For Consummation.

Sometimes It Seems That We Might Have Been Happier If We Had Once Had An Aristocracy To Blame Everything On.

It Is One Of The Paradoxes Of American Literature That Our Writers Are Forever Looking Back With Love And Nostalgia At Lives They Couldn't Wait To Leave.

The Contents Of Someone's Bookcase Are Part Of His History, Like An Ancestral Portrait.

A Book Is Meant Not Only To Be Read, But To Haunt You, To Importune You Like A Lover Or A Parent, To Be In Your Teeth Like A Piece Of Gristle.