Book Collecting Quotes

To librarians, booksellers, and collectors there is nothing limited in the subject of books about books. ~ Leona Rostenberg

Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one. ~ Augustine Birrell

In nature, the bird who gets up earliest catches the most worms, but in book collecting the prizes fall to birds who know worms when they see them. ~ Michael Sadleir

I hold that book-collecting is the best of indoor sports, and I think I can provide proof; at any rate, I shall try. ~ A. Edward Newton

Ask anyone with a big book collection, and they'll tell you moving them was the hardest part of the move. Take down a bookshelf and there's often no less than four, possibly up to eight, good Lord if it's over ten, boxes of dense material. This is the single greatest argument for welcoming ebooks. Abandoning print and having your Kindle on display instead doesn't sound like such a bad idea while carrying book box number seven to the car. ~ Lauren Leto

book collecting is only meaningful if it's personal," Oscar clarified. "If it's just another way of accumulating wealth instead of for the books themselves it isn't right. Collectors are trying to protect themselves. To separate themselves. It's a hierarchy. ~ Sheridan Hay

A book collector is mad enough to begin with, Watson; but tempt him with some such bait as this Shakespeare quarto and he is bereft of all sanity. ~ Vincent Starrett

To a lover of books the shops and sales in London present irresistible temptations. ~ Edward Gibbon

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.
- Walter Benjamin, Unpacking My Library ~ Phillip Lopate

Book collecting! First editions and best editions; old books and new books - the ones you like and want to have around you. Thousands of 'em. I've had more honest satisfaction and happiness collecting books than anything else I've ever done in life. ~ Peter Ruber

Beware the man of one book. ~ Latin Proverb

I hold a theory that, sooner or later, if a man but live long enough, certain books destined for his peculiar delight will find him, however obscure they or he may be. ~ Vincent Starrett

Buy books, then, that you have read with profit and pleasure and hope to read and reread. Buy books that you may underscore passages and write upon the margins, thus assuring yourself that the book is your own. Keep the books that mean the most to you close at hand, one or two, if possible, on a table at your bedside. Do not hide away your favorite books or keep them locked in enclosed shelves. Do not keep them under glass. ~ Burton Rascoe

Digital texts are all well and good, but books on shelves are a presence in your life. As such, they become a part of your day-to-day existence, reminding you, chastising you, calling to you. Plus, book collecting is, hands down, the greatest pastime in the world. ~ Michael Dirda

I am often asked a stock question: 'Have you actually read all those books?' To this I have my answer ready: 'Is there anybody who has read all the books in his library?' That would be like claiming to enjoy the incredible luxury and good fortune of being able to accomplish everything in this life that one would wish. ~ Konstantinos Staikos

How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books! ~ Walter Benjamin

O my darling books…how dear to me are they all! For have I not chosen them one by one, gathered them in with the sweat of my brow? I do love you all! It seems as if, by long and sweet companionship, you had become part of myself. ~ Antoine Issac, Baron Silvestre De Sacy

Sometimes, looking at the many books I have at home, I feel I shall die before I come to the end of them, yet I cannot resist the temptation of buying new books. Whenever I walk into a bookstore and find a book on one of my hobbies - for example, Old English or Old Norse poetry - I say to myself, What a pity I can't buy that book, for I already have a copy at home. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

My little hobby. Book Collecting. And yet, old friends, books do not age as you and I do. They will speak still when we are gone, to generations we will never see. Yes, the books must survive. -Bulldog ~ Corrie Ten Boom

After love, book collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all. ~ A. S. W. Rosenbach

My only dream is to get old and finally have time to read all the books that I'm collecting. ~ Gianni Versace

Magpies have an acquisitive instinct, and a similarly indiscriminate passion for accumulating junk afflicts one in a hundred of the human race. But that is not what we mean by a collector. ~ John Carter

Like all collectors, I exist in a perpetual state of want that bears no reasonable relationship to the quantity of unread books mounting up on my shelves. ~ Pamela Paul

Emails are viewed as an essential historical record of an organization. A record that cannot be expunged must be created with care or not created at all. ~ Kent Alan Robinson

Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain. No attention should be paid to the fact that algebra and geometry are different in appearance. Algebras (jabbre and maqabeleh) are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements. ~ Omar Khayyam

Then I realized that I was falling victim to one of the fallacies of the bad reviewer (whose habits we already discussed at length in yesterday's commentary). I was wishing that Hamid had written a different book than he had. How I might have written this story is completely irrelevant. It would be like dismissing The Godfather because I wished it were a musical. The novel needs to be considered on its own terms. ~ Kevin Guilfoile

sat down to write a book and instead left hilariously awesome comments across various statuses. You're welcome, Facebook. ~ Jordan Krumbine

In a section of The Vaccine Book titled "Is it your social responsibility to vaccinate your kids?" Dr. Bob asks, "Can we fault parents for putting their own child's health ahead of that of the kids around him?" This is meant to be a rhetorical question, but Dr. Bob's implied answer is not mine. In another section of the book, Dr. Bob writes of his advice to parents who fear the MMR vaccine, "I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we'll likely see the disease increase significantly." I do not need to consult an ethicist to determine that there is something wrong there, but my sister clarifies my discomfort. "The problem is in making a special exemption just for yourself," she says. This reminds her of a way of thinking proposed by the philosopher John Rawls: Imagine that you do not know what position you are going to hold in society - rich, poor, educated, insured, no access to health care, infant, adult, HIV positive, healthy immune system, etc. - but that you are aware of the full range of possibilities. What you would want in that situation is a policy that is going to be equally just no matter what position you end up in. "Consider relationships of dependence," my sister suggests. "You don't own your body - that's not what we are, our bodies aren't independent. The health of our bodies always depends on choices other people are making." She falters for a moment here, and is at a loss for words, which is rar ~ Eula Biss

You are a goddess. You are a catch. You are, like, the outcome of every self-help book ever written. ~ Georgia Clark

My recurring nightmare is that someday I will be faced with a panel: Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson all of whom will be telling me everything I got wrong about them. I know that Johnson's out there saying, 'Why is it that what you wrote about the Kennedys is twice as long as the book you wrote about me?' ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

You are not educated if all you have achieved is the study of ten books. ~ Sai Baba

Chicken Soup for the Soul". You've heard of these books, am I right? We've all heard of them. But I wonder if you're aware of just how many "Chicken Soup" books exist on the planet. No offense, but I doubt it. I doubt it because in the time it would take you to come up with a number, the number would have become obsolete. Even as you read this, in some quiet, fecund place, another "Chicken Soup" book is being born. ~ Marisa De Los Santos

Ah! Books don't come all that often, at least not my way. Andre Malraux's The Psychology of Art was one of them. It was published just after the war. It was too expensive to buy but I located a copy of this luminous book in the Manchester Art Gallery; and i had to make several journeys by motor-cycle, often through sleet and snow until I had finished it. From time to time I wanted to get up on the table to proclaim its truth to all around me, or slap my next-desk neighbour over the back and say, 'There you are; just get hold of that!' Once I nearly did but just in time I noticed he was reading a text on the structure of plastics. By now, of course, I know that some people can get as much aesthetic pleasure out of contemplating the formula for a long molecule as others do from beholding a mural by Piero della Francesca. Technologists have their Ah! Moments too! ~ Vernon Sproxton

I write both at home and at coffee shops, and I have a terrible work ethic - I have a tendency to write most of my books right before the deadline. I'm trying to work on that, but so far, I'm not getting any more organized. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

One afternoon late in October of the year 1697, Euclide Auclair, the philosopher apothecary of Quebec, stood on the top of Cap Diamant gazing down the broad, empty river far beneath him. ~ Willa Cather

I know this sounds like quite a pile. I know, too, that some of you will wonder why I don't just buy a Kindle. I see your point, but the trouble is that to do so would be to forgo the pleasure of the moment when, years in the future, sand falls from the pages of an old book, and you suddenly remember the Isle of Wight and A Passage to India, a Greek island and The Map of Love, or whatever. For me, a ghostly trace of Ambre Solaire rising from the pages of a sun-bleached paperback is a way back to the past: to favourite stories as much as to favourite beaches. ~ Rachel Cooke

You don't get it" she said
'Don't get what?"
'We are one"
'We are one?" Tengo asked with a shock.
'We wrote the book together"
Tengo felt the pressure of Fuka-Eri's fingers against his palm.
...
'That's true. We wrote Air Crysalis together. And when we are eaten by the tiger, we'll be eaten together. ~ Haruki Murakami

Sherman Alexie: Reading centers on finding yourself in a book. ~ Anita Silvey

Ever notice how on a bad day you never deserve a salad? I mean how long do you think your bad mood would really last if you only fed your brat celery? How many bad days would your brat tolerate if it no longer got rewarded a drink, a cigarette, or an entire Netflix series on the couch for it. ~ Lauren Handel Zander

What are books but tangible dreams? What is reading if it is not dreaming? The best books cause us to dream; the rest are not worth reading. ~ Rikki Ducornet

As animals are unable to form any sentences at all, then how are they able to compose any thoughts in their heads? ~ Sahara Sanders

There came a time in my life when I doubted the divinity of the Scriptures, and I resolved as a lawyer and a judge I would try the Book as I would try anything in the courtroom, taking evidence for and against. It was a long, serious and profound study and using the same principles of evidence in this religious matter as I always do in secular matters, I have come to the decision that the Bible is a supernatural Book, that it has come from God, and that the only safety for the human race is to follow its teachings. ~ Salmon P. Chase

They go in not because they need any certain volume but because they feel that there may be some book that needs them. ~ Christopher Morley

A book is actually a place, a place where we, as adults, still have the chance to engage in active imagining, translating word into image, connecting these images to memories, dreams and larger ideas. Television, film, even the stage play, have already been imagined for us, but the book, in whatever form we choose to interact with it, forces us to complete it ... The fact that books provide us the place to imagine is critically important, as it is there, in the imagination, that all sense of possibility rests. ~ Joe Meno

Soon after he purchased me, Epps asked me if I could write and read, and on being informed that I had received some instruction in those branches of education, he assured me, with emphasis, if he ever caught me with a book, or with pen and ink, he would give me a hundred lashes. ~ Solomon Northup

Oh shit," a super-deep, gravelly voice said. The voice came from a man behind the book counter, and he was the one not smiling. He had long, gray hair pulled back in a braid, a red, rolled bandana wrapped around his forehead and a thick gray beard. ~ Kristen Ashley

He was worth waiting for, even when I didn't know he was coming into my life. ~ Cristin Harber

Somehow I could lose myself in the ocean the same way I could lose myself in a good book. Maybe it was because both involved suspension
a suspension of weight, a suspension of disbelief
a willingness to surrender to something greater than oneself. ~ Eve Marie Mont

This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and it's object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. ~ Mark Twain

I plan to learn enough to read you like a book. ~ Sylvia Brownrigg

I have always loved reading. Ever since I was a young girl I had a book by my bed and would get lost in the world of make believe. ~ Lauren Conrad

If you have enough room for your books, you don't have enough books. ~ James Bryce

All the information you could want is constantly streaming at you like a runaway truck - books, newspaper stories, Web sites, apps, how-to videos, this article you're reading, even entire magazines devoted to single subjects like charcuterie or wedding cakes or pickles. ~ Mario Batali

I'm not one of your knockabout, knuckle-scarred, Internet-controversy-courting book critics. Occasionally I stumble into controversy accidentally, but not because I enjoy it. It's probably just because I'm a weird person. ~ Lev Grossman

I know in my mind I don't need to be jealous, but the wolf in me considers you mine even when I didn't know you.
Loftis, Quinn (2011-06-29). Prince of Wolves (The Grey Wolves Series Book 1) (Kindle Locations 3613-3614). Kindle Edition. ~ Quinn Loftis

I wanted to relay a first hand experience to an audience possibly struggling to understand just what living with an autoimmune condition means," Connery says. "It's a difficult journey and very much misunderstood by our friends and family – I hope this book can help to change that. ~ Richard Connery

Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners ~ Isaac D'Israeli

The stub of the candle had long been guttering in its crooked candlestick within that wretched room, shedding its dim light on the murderer and the prostitute who had so strangely encountered each other in the reading of the eternal book. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The book of Isaiah is a tract for our own times; our very aversion to it testifies to its relevance. ~ Hugh Nibley

My writing is of a very different kind from anything I've heard about. All this mythological material is out there, a big gathering of stuff, and I have been reading it for some forty- or fifty-odd years. There are various ways of handling that. The most common is to put the material together and publish a scholarly book about it. But when I'm writing, I try to get a sense of an experiential relationship to the material. In fact, I can't write unless that happens ... I don't write unless the stuff is really working on me, and my selection of material depends on what works. ~ Joseph Campbell

Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins. ~ Jonathan Sacks

Ayden and Blake stared each other down.
"Oh. My. God," Luna blurted from Ayden's back seat. "It's a love triangle."
We all looked at her like she'd sprouted an alien from her head. "it's just like in a book. Two guys after one girl and-"
I groaned. "That's ridiculous, Luna, this is not a love triangle."
"Says the girl in the middle of a love triangle. Luna ignored my protests and prattled on. "Not one Hexy Boy but two. I've got to call Danica. Oooo," she squealed and clapped her hands,"We could have teams. Team Ayden and Team Blake. With T-shirt and buttons and-"
"I could make a website," Lucian offered.
"No!" My voice pitched with panic. "No teams. No shirts. No-"
"I'll get you some headshots," Blake said, turning his profile towards Luna and Lucian. "I've been told the left is my best side. What do you think?"
"Aurora's right," Ayden said. "This is buts. Blake you can follow us-"
"Dude, you know no one would pick Team Ayden. You're just jealous."
"That's not true. My team would be way bigger than yours."
"Dare to dream, little man, dare to dream."
"Care to make a wager on it?"
"Absolutely."
"Fine. How about-"
"You two shut up!" I shoved myself out of the car. ~ A. Kirk

When I wrote my book I wanted to love someone. I wanted to be in love. Now I know that I shall never be in love - and I no longer wish to be. ~ Mary MacLane

At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But, if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat. ~ Mark Twain

I have spoken of reinventing marriage, of marriages achieving their rebirth in the middle age of the partners. This phenomenon has been called the 'comedy of remarriage' by Stanley Cavell, whose Pursuits of Happiness, a film book, is perhaps the best marriage manual ever published. One must, however, translate his formulation from the language of Hollywood, in which he developed it, into the language of middle age: less glamour, less supple youth, less fantasyland. Cavell writes specifically of Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s in which couples -- one partner is often the dazzling Cary Grant -- learn to value each other, to educate themselves in equality, to remarry. Cavell recognizes that the actresses in these movie -- often the dazzling Katherine Hepburn -- are what made them possible. If read not as an account of beautiful people in hilarious situations, but as a deeply philosophical discussion of marriage, his book contains what are almost aphorisms of marital achievement. For example: ....'[The romance of remarriage] poses a structure in which we are permanently in doubt who the hero is, that is, whether it is the male or female who is the active partner, which of them is in quest, who is following whom.'

Cary grant & Katherine Hepburn "Above all, despite the sexual attractiveness of the actors in the movies he discusses, Cavell knows that sexuality is not the ultimate secret in these marriage: 'in God's intention a meet and happy conversation is th ~ Carolyn G. Heilbrun

All my life, I've wanted to write a book inspired by my relationship with my grandfather. Basically, my grandfather was a guy who everybody in the family regarded as disagreeable at best. But I loved him intensely. He was wonderful to me. ~ Scott Turow

I do not remember if it was the smell of the land, of the haystacks outside the barn, or the warm breath that the horse exhaled on my t-shirt, but there was one moment when I finally felt at home.
It happened at Louise's farm, called Infinity Farms, an isolated place a few miles south of Stoneville. A miniscule dot on the map of Oklahoma's desolate land.

"Oklahoma", from Red Juntion Book ~ Cristiana Di Palma

The Lord does not show Himself to a proud soul. The proud soul, no matter how many books it reads, will never know God, since by its pride it does not give place for the grace of the Holy Spirit, while God is known only by the humble soul. ~ Silouan The Athonite

I wanted to be a witch when I was a kid. I was obsessed with witchcraft. At school, me and my two friends had these spell books; I always wanted a more magical reality. I had a little shrine at home and I did a spell to try and make the boy in the other class fall in love with me. ~ Florence Welch

I'm interested in the Gothic novel because it's very much a woman's form. Why is there such a wide readership for books that essentially say, 'Your husband is trying to kill you'? ~ Margaret Atwood

That is what a book does. It introduces us to people and places we wouldn't ordinarily know. A good book is a magic gateway into a wider world of wonder, beauty, delight, and adventure. Books are experiences that make us grow, that add something to our inner stature. ~ Gladys M. Hunt