“People are best on records and books because you can turn them off or put them back on the shelf.”

“The much bigger thing is that we as human beings shepherd and create our intellectual history as a civilization. And it is that intellectual history on the shelf that we can pull off the shelf to do stuff, and to avoid doing the dumb things again, because somebody already did the dumb thing and wrote about their experience and we don't need to do it again. There are several processes that are creating that record, and other processes where people are trying to destroy bits of that record, and others that are trying to prevent people from putting things into that record in the first place. We all live off that intellectual record. So what we want to do is get as much into the record, prevent as much as possible being deleted from the record, and then make the record as searchable as possible.”

“Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”

“Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.”

“Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today.”

“Books are spaceships: with them you can reach new orbits. And with the best ones, the miracle of the Overview Effect.”

“I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within reach of everybody.”

“The best book is but the record of the best life.”

“Camera-phones are like nuclear power plants: bad people will turn them into evil, good people will put them to good use.”

“I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.”