Quotes & Sayings About Lending Books

Lending Out Books

You're always giving, my therapist said.
You have to learn how to take. Whenever
you meet a woman, the first thing you do
is lend her your books. You think she'll
have to see you again in order to return them.
but what happens is, she doesn't have the time
to read them, & she's afraid if she sees you again
you'll expect her to walk about them, & will
want to lend her even more. So she
cancels the date. You end up losing
a lot of books. You should borrow hers. — Hal Sirowitz

The study found widespread dissatisfaction with our town's public library, and, when considering the facts, it's easy to see why. The public computers for Internet use are outdated and slow. The lending period of fourteen days is not nearly long enough to read lengthier books, given the busy schedule of all our lives. The fatality rate is also well above the national average for public libraries. — Joseph Fink

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. — Anatole France

I hate lending, or borrowing - if you want me to read a book, tell me about it, or buy me a copy outright. Your loaned edition sits in my house like a real grievance. And in lieu of lending books, I buy extra copies of those I want to give away, which gives me the added pleasure of buying books I love again and again.
Jonathan Lethem — Leah Price

There is a simple rule: practice a kind of generous selfishness. Give a book to a friend, but don't lend it, because you will never get it back. ~ James Wood, author of The Book Against God. — Leah Price

For six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of age, made her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries. — Gustave Flaubert

The most dangerous part of lending books lies in the returning. At such times, friendships hang by a thread. I look for agony, ecstasy, for tears, transfiguration, trembling hands, a broken voice - but what the borrower usually says is, "I enjoyed it."
I enjoyed it - as if that were what books were for. — Anatole Broyard

Outside theology and fantastic literature, few can doubt that the main features of our universe are its dearth of meaning and lack of discernible purpose. And yet, with bewildering optimism, we continue to assemble whatever scraps of information we can gather in scrolls and books and computer chips, on shelf after library shelf, whether material, virtual or otherwise, pathetically intent on lending the world a semblance of sense and order, while knowing perfectly well that, however much we'd like to believe the contrary, our pursuits are sadly doomed to failure. — Alberto Manguel

Lending books to other people is merely a shrewd form of housecleaning. — Joe Queenan

Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit on selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts. — Jo Walton

I grew up in a house full of books, and we belonged to the Country Lending Service - each month the State Library would send us a parcel of books by train. — Garry Disher

Have you been reading those books that clueless illiterate Duja in charge of the lending library lets you borrow?' 'No, Ma.' 'Then what put you in mind of devils possessing nuns to take over the church? — Renita D'Silva

So he lent her books. After all, one of life's best pleasures is reading a book of perfect beauty; more pleasurable still is rereading that book; most pleasurable of all is lending it to the person one loves: Now she is reading or has just read the scene with the mirrors; she who is so lovely is drinking in that loveliness I've drunk. — William T. Vollmann