“I’ve been reading a good deal.  Eight or ten hours a day.  I’ve attended lectures at the Sorbonne . . .”

“And what is that going to lead to?”

“The acquisition of knowledge,” he smiled.

“It doesn’t sound very practical.”

“Perhaps it isn’t and on the other hand perhaps it is.  But it’s enormous fun.  You can’t imagine what a thrill it is to read the Odyssey in the original.  It makes you feel as if you had only to get on tiptoe and stretch out your hands to touch the stars.”

(From The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham)