“I recall Edward Johnston as a serious and courteous man, weary from ill health, but with a startling and delightful clarity of mind. He was a perfectionist. Once, too briefly and inadequately, I said to him that I did not believe in perfection. His immediate response was: ‘I believe in the Book of Kells!’”

—Alfred Fairbank; quoted by Warren Chappell in A Short History of the Printed Word, 1970.