“Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.”

“Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.”

“I want to describe the Body as a Book, a Book as a Body, and this Body and this Book will be the first Volume of Thirteen Volumes.”

“Books read in a public library never have the same flavour as books read in the attic or the kitchen.”

“He was a one-book man. Some men have only one book in them; others, a library.”

“Do not be guilty of possessing a library of learned books while lacking learning yourself.”

“You took out a book on blow-job technique from the British Library? They shouldn't have books like that in there!”

“The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library... Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.”

“To take another simile [that the brain is like a machine], if we imagine a great library containing books which have a vast number of cross references one to another, then should one whole shelf be burned, it might be possible to reconstruct the lost books -- but somewhat less perfectly than at first.”

“Though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much.”