The Life of Samuel Johnson

He had a peculiar facility in seizing at once what was valuable in any book, without submitting to the labour of perusing it from beginning to end. He had, from the irritability of his constitution, at all times, an impatience and hurry when he either read or wrote.

I have heard him attribute to these extravagant fictions that unsettled turn of mind which prevented his ever fixing in any profession.'

as I acquired a facility in recollecting, and was very assiduous in recording, his conversation, of which the extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the first features of his character;

He told me that from his earliest years he loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end;

He had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him through them.