When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed,

I have had playmates, I have had companions,

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.

[A pun] is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.

Books think for me.

Not many sounds in life … exceed in interest a knock at the door.

Your borrowers of books —those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.

The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend.

Presents, I often say, endear Absents.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.