“Every passion borders on chaos, that of the collector on the chaos of memory.”

“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.”

“Thus there is in the life of a collector a dialectical tensions between the poles of disorder and order.”

“As Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend.”

“The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them.”

“The book borrower… proves himself to be an in venerate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures… as by his failure to read these books. ”

“The book borrower...proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures...as by his failure to read these books.”