Book Ownership Quotes

The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.

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

I came from a home where everybody had a book.

It is those books which a man possesses but does not read which constitute the most suspicious evidence against him.

The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.

More Bibles are bought and fewer read than any other book.

I have about 3,500 books, maybe more.

To buy books would be a good thing if we could also buy the time to read them; but the purchase of books is often mistaken for the assimilation and mastering of their contents.

Reading alters the appearance of a book. Once it has been read, it never looks the same again, and people leave their individual imprint on a book they have read. Once of the pleasures of reading is seeing this alteration on the pages, and the way, by reading it, you have made the book yours.

A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books.

I've just started to get really envious when I go into people's houses and see books on a shelf.

Things that people will say to me, mostly, is that you shouldn't have all these books. It's too expensive.

I really like looking at other people's book collections when I'm at someone's house. I think it is an amazing cross section of a person's brain and lifestyle. I think everyone should photograph their book spines and make a website. Seriously.

Naturally, I have compensated in my adult years by owning very large numbers of books.

Buying books was a way anyone could acquire a work of art for very little.

I own a hundred and fifty books, but I have no bookcase. Nobody will lend me a bookcase.

It should be possible to exist with only a short shelf of books, to read and give away. After all - we may not open a book, once read, for ten years or more. But the act of reading has made it part of us - to relinquish it would be to lose an extension of our being.

Books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.

I couldn't live a week without a private library - indeed, I'd part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I'd let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.

They will be given as gifts; books that are especially pretty or visual will be bought as hard copies; books that are collectible will continue to be collected; people with lots of bookshelves will keep stocking them; and anyone who likes to make notes in books will keep buying books with margins to fill.

A status symbol is a book. A very easy book to read is The Catcher in the Rye. Walk around with that under your arm, kids. That is status.

Once you finish a book, it doesn't belong to you anymore. You're giving it to other people. If something in what a writer writes can excite the imagination and the feelings of the reader, then that reader carries it around forever. Nothing is more vivid than good fiction.

Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.

You ever buy a book and not read it? You feel almost guilty having it up on a bookshelf. People are like, "Hey, how's that book?" "I haven't read it." "Oh, did you just buy it?" "I've had it since high school." "Well, can I borrow it?" "No."