“From the moment he lit it, in the doorway of the apartment house on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, Maigret savored his pipe with greater enjoyment than on other mornings.” Georges Simenon, Maigret and the Spinster.

“Trees, and the shade they cast, have often been seen as the bane of gardeners, but they don’t have to be.” Brooklyn Botanic Garden (C. Colston Burrell, Guest Editor), Woodland Gardens.

“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” Henry James, Portrait of a Lady.

“I grew up with a proper reverence for cocktails.” Anne Taintor, I’m So Happy It’s Happy Hour: Sinfully Delicious Cocktails for any Occasion.

“It is after midnight on one of those Friday nights when the guests have all gone home and the host and hostess are left in their drunkenness to try and put things right again.” A.M. Homes, Music for Torching.

“Good cooking, in the final analysis, depends on two things: common sense and good taste.” Simon Hopkinson, Roast Chicken and Other Stories.

“By dawn at least half of the members of the Kelly gang were badly wounded and it was then the creature appeared behind police lines.” Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang.

“After the solemnity of the church service and the finality of the grave, the people of the Mississippi Delta are just dying to get to the house of the bereaved for the reception.” Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays, Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral.

“Florida’s beauty creates the illusion of civilization.” Tim Dorsey, Hammerhead Ranch Motel.

“This book is about an uncomfortable truth: It takes government–a lot of government—for advanced societies to flourish.” Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper.

“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are not just family estates of the Buonopartes.” Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.

“I have been, as the physicist Victor Weisskopf once said of himself, a happy man in a terrible century.” Edward O. Wilson, Naturalist.

“To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.

“There is nothing in the world more perfect than a slide rule.” Hope Jahren, Lab Girl.