“A computer does not smell… if a book is new, it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better… And it stays with you forever. But the computer doesn’t do that for you. I’m sorry.”

“There was the smell of old books, a smell that has a way of making all libraries seem the same. Some say that smell is asbestos.”

Scott Douglas (1963) American wheelchair tennis player

“And how could anyone consent to give up the smell of open books, old or new?”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Swan Thieves

“I even love the smell of books.”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

“opening the book, i inhaled. the smell of old books, so sharp, so dry you can taste it.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

“The place was part museum, part library, and part archive; I loved it at first sight…and smell, for here there were thousands of printed books, many very old indeed, and nothing smells quite as wonderful as old books.”

Dan Simmons book The Fall of Hyperion

“Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“The place smelled of fairgrounds, of lazy crowds, of nights when you stayed out because you couldn't go to bed, and it smelled like New York, of its calm and brutal indifference.”

Georges Simenon (1903–1989) Belgian writer

“She loved the smell of books, the feel of books, the look of them on the shelf.”

Elizabeth Peters (1927–2013) American author and egyptologist

“I love the smell of book ink in the morning.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist