Quotes by Christopher Morley

“"Lord!" he said, "when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue — you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night — there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean..."”

“The moment when one meets a book and knows, beyond shadow of doubt, that that book must be his — not necessarily now, but some time — is among the happiest excitements of the spirit... There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love, and like that colossal adventure it is an experience of great social import... It is a jealous passion also. He feels a little indignant if he finds that any one else has discovered the book, too.”

“It is a curious thing that so many people only go into a bookshop when they happen to need some particular book... There are some knightly souls who... go in not because they need any certain volume, but because they feel that there may be some book that needs them. Some wistful, little forgotten sheaf of loveliness, long pining away on an upper shelf — why not ride up, fling her across your charger (or your charge account), and gallop away. Be a little knightly, you booklovers!”

“Life is a foreign language: all men mispronounce it.”

“It has been suggested that the Three Hours for Lunch Club is an immoral institution; that it is founded upon an insufficient respect for the devotions of industry; that it runs counter to the form and pressure of the age; that it encourages a greedy and rambling humour in the young of both sexes; that it even punctures, in the capsule of efficiency and determination by which Great Matters are Put Over... But Food is not the chief object of its quest. It is true that Man, bitterly examined, is merely a vehicle for units of nourishing combustion; but on the occasions when the Club feels most truly Itself it rises above such considerations.”

“There is a question I sometimes put to myself, and I suppose everyone does in his secret moments. When, if ever, am I actually happy? There are two situations in which I have unexpectedly found myself thinking, "Observe, I am perfectly happy." One of them is when I am reading a good detective story and feel I am about to go to sleep. The other happiness is sitting on a gravel path and pulling up weeds.”