“Being poor is only romantic in books.”

“The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.”

“What I fear is not being forgotten after my death, but, rather, not being enough forgotten. As we were saying, it is not our books that survive, but our poor lives that linger in the histories.”

“There is a difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is temporary, and poor is eternal.”

“That's why I call this place the Haunted Bookshop. Haunted by the ghosts of the books I haven't read. Poor uneasy spirits, they walk and walk around me. There's only one way to lay the ghost of a book, and that is to read it.”

“After Olympia Press, in Paris, published the book, an American critic suggested that Lolita was the record of my love affair with the romantic novel. The substitution "English language" for "romantic novel" would make this elegant formula more correct.”

“Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.”

“If not for me being stoned and clinging to a taco, it would have been terribly romantic.”

“97. One of the brethren owned only a book of the Gospels. He sold this and gave the money for the support of the poor. He made a statement that deserves remembrance: "I have sold the very word that speaks to me saying: 'Sell your possessions and give to the poor.'"”

“Only when a book is written out of passion is there much hope of its being read with passion.”