“I get a warm feeling among my books.”

“This is a book and a body that is so warm to the touch. My touch.”

“If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”

“A strange, warm feeling swirled in my chest, and for a brief moment, when I looked at him, I saw… safety”

“What do I myself think of this particular book? I feel lousy about it, but I always feel lousy about my books.”

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”

“I am an unrepentant book lover, and so soaked am I in the love of books that I feel – poor twentieth-century shopkeeper that I am – I feel that Pliny is a man I know, for all the eighteen centuries and more that lie between us. Pliny used to say (you will see it in a translation I have on my shelves) that no book was so bad that some good might be got out of it, and that is my feeling. I – and Pliny – born and bred so differently, feel the same about books and it gives me a flattering sense of rightness – sitting here in this shop among books that Pliny could not have imagined – books written in a language which was not then evolved – the thought makes me feel thrilled. There is no other word for it, but I dare not tell it to anyone. It is an astonishing secret to me that I must enjoy alone.”

“It simultaneously warms my heart and wears my delete key when I get emails from twelve-year-olds.”

“I used to sleep with my books in piles all over my bed and sometimes they were the only thing keeping me warm and always the only thing keeping me alive. Books are the best and worst defense.”