You’d best have family and friends with...

You’d best have family and friends with patience and a sense of humor because you’ll find yourself reading aloud two or three of the wise and funny quotes on every page of The Other 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, compiled by Robert Byrne (Atheneum: $10.95). Try No. 215 from Lily Tomlin: The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat. Or No. 11 from Mark Twain: Faith is believing what you know ain’t so. Or No. 371 from Christopher Hampton: Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.