“Sir, I didn't deserve the grade you gave me on this test. Do you know a lower one?”

“For every studen with a spark of brilliance, there are about ten with ignition trouble.” 

“The human brain is special. It starts working as soon as you get up and it doesn't stop until you get to school.” 

“When I was in school, one of my teachers was crazy about me. I once heard her tell another teacher, "I wish he was my kid for one day!"” 

Proust's is a long book, though, water- skiing permitting, you could get through it in the summer recess

Books are wonderful, aren't they?' she said to the vice-chancellor who concurred. 'At the risk of sounding like a piece of steak,' she said, 'they tenderise one.

A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.

Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds.

It was the kind of library he had only read about in books.

... Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. That's always been my philosophy.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.

Education is the sum of what students teach each other between lectures and seminars.

A university is not, thank heavens, a place for vocational instruction, it has nothing to do with training for a working life and career, it is a place for education, something quite different.

This is the point. One technology doesn't replace another, it complements. Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.

When I was at drama school, I wanted to change the world, and thought I had some great wisdom to impart to people about humanity. Now that I'm older, I know enough to realise that I know nothing at all.

At my school, which was all boys, I played almost exclusively lady parts. When I say lady parts, I mean parts that were ladies. To actually play lady parts would be weird, even by English standards.

When you got source material, whether it's a play or a book - a great writer often appreciates being adapted and developed. It's like when you go see a production of a great play and they are always different. There is always room for interpretation.

[Tom] Wolfe's books offered a whole new world to step into, and whilst at times you could accuse him of being somewhat long-winded, he had an incredible quality of prose and a bravery of writing from the heart. He believed in being autobiographical at all times.

I had studied theater for three years in London when someone suggested me for the role.

Every stylish man should have a copy of 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand on his bookshelf.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor.

I wasn't bad at school, but I was never a bookworm.

In other words, it's one of those books you thrust on your partner with an incredulous cry of "This is me!