“It's against my principles to buy a book I haven't read, it's like buying a dress you haven't tried on.”

“It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.”

“My depth of purse is not so greatNor yet my bibliophilic greed,That merely buying doth elate:The books I buy I like to read:Still e'en when dawdling in a mead,Beneath a cloudless summer sky,By bank of Thames, or Tyne, or Tweed,The books I read — I like to buy.”

“For every book you buy, you should buy the time to read it.”

“It's a tiny bestseller, but, officially yes. But, hey, most people haven't read Moby-Dick, so why the hell should they read my book?”

“Books can be possessive, can't they? You're walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what's inside will change your life, but sometimes you don't even have to read it. Sometimes it's a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven't even had their spines cracked. 'Why do you buy books you don't even read?' our daughter asks us. That's like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course.”