“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

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "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. Lor…" by Ray Bradbury?
Ray Bradbury photo
Ray Bradbury401
American writer 1920–2012

Related quotes

“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

Source: Houses of Stone

“I even love the smell of books.”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Umberto Eco photo

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

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

Eudora Welty photo

“I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.”

Eudora Welty book One Writer's Beginnings

One Writer's Beginnings(1984)
Context: It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them -- with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.

Ray Bradbury photo

“A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Wayne W. Dyer photo

“It is easy to love people when they smell good, but sometimes they slip into the manure of life and smell awful. You must love them just as much when they smell foul.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“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

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 32 (p. 269)

Eudora Welty photo

“It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them -- with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.”

Eudora Welty book One Writer's Beginnings

One Writer's Beginnings(1984)

Colette photo

“Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Ray Bradbury photo

“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.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Related topics