[W]hen I hear or read a good line I can hardly wait to tell it to somebody else...

Byrne describes the contagious pleasure of encountering a striking sentence—so pleasurable that it immediately becomes social. The line frames reading not as solitary consumption but as a kind of collecting and sharing, where a “good line” is a small treasure that gains value when passed along. It also hints at the ethic behind quotation-keeping: the reader becomes a conduit, preserving language that deserves to travel beyond its original setting. Implicitly, the quote celebrates enthusiasm and generosity in literary taste—the impulse to connect with others through words that have moved or delighted us.