Tsundoku Quotes

I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days. ~ Alberto Manguel

Her seven-year-old self had decided that stealing books was morally bankrupt, but since the books hadn't actually left the library - they'd merely been relocated - it wasn't technically stealing. Echo looked around at her sea of tomes, and a single word came to mind: Tsundoku. It was the Japanese word for letting books pile up without reading them all. ~ Anonymous

The to-read pile is more than just a physical stack of books: it's a tower of ambitions failed, hopes unrealised, good intentions unfulfilled. Worse still, it's a cold hard reminder of mortality. Already, I have intentions to read more books than I can hope to manage in a normal lifetime. How will this pile of books taunt me when I'm 64? ~ Sam Jordison

There's this word in Japanese: tsundoku," Neil says suddenly.
"It's my favorite word in any language."
"What does it mean?"
He grins. "It means acquiring more books than you could ever
realistically read. ~ Rachel Lynn Solomon

A great private collection is a material concentrate that continually stimulates, that overexcites. Not only because it can always be added to, but because it is already too much. The collector's need is precisely for excess, for surfeit, for profusion. It's too much - and it's just enough for me. ... A collection is always more than is necessary. ~ Susan Sontag

Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted. ~ Alberto Manguel

Organizing the books was a fun afternoon. We decided to put the thick hardback books, mostly intro. to philosophy textbooks and Norton literature anthologies, on the top shelves where they looked good but stayed out of reach since there's no reason for opening them ever again. Then we went by genre: mysteries, cozies, modernists, mountains, sci-fi, beloved childhood volumes, books we bought abroad, books required in school we couldn't sell back, books bought for us we'll read soon, books bought for us we have no intention of reading, books we want to read but are too long for a commitment with our current schedules...We're not really done with this organization, and I doubt we ever will be, but that's one great part about it. ~ Joshua Isard