“We all know that a book is not really a person. It isn’t a human being. But if you are a lover of books as books – as objects, that is – and ignore the human element in them – that is, their voices – you will be committing an error of the soul, because you will be an idolator, or else a fetishist.”

“A book, being a physical object, engenders a certain respect that zipping electrons cannot. Because you cannot turn a book off, because you have to hold it in your hands, because a book sits there, waiting for you, whether you think you want it or not, because of all these things, a book is a friend. It’s not just the content, but the physical being of a book that is there for you always and unconditionally.”

“A longing for books [is] nothing compared with what you [can] feel for human beings. The books [tell] you about that feeling. The books [speak] of love, and it [is] wonderful to listen to them, but they [are] no substitute for love itself.”

“Each time we come to a book we give it a different reading because we bring a different person to it. It is not you who reads the book, the book reads you”

“Between ourselves, there is no such thing, abstractly, as a 'good' book. A book is 'good' only when it meets some human hunger or refutes some human error. ”

“I guess there isn’t a rule book for what might be unacceptable to do to another human being.”