“Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”

“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.”

“You could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interest, his habits.”

“Books, too, begin like the week – with a day of rest in memory of their creation. The preface is their Sunday.”

“And the non-reading of books, you will object, should be characteristic of all collectors? This is news to me, you may say. It is not news at all. experts will bear me out when I say that it is the oldest thing in the world. Suffice it to quote the answer which Anatole France gave to a philistine who admired his library and then finished with the standard question, “And you have read all these books, Monsieur France?” “Not one-tenth of them. I don’t suppose you use your Sevres china every day?”

“to great writers, finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they labor their entire lives.”