Quotes & Sayings About Owning Books

Brian: I love books
Prof. Morrison: The contents of books, or just owning a whole load of books? — David Nicholls

People sometimes act as though owning books you haven't read constitutes a charade or pretense, but for me, there's a lovely mystery and pregnancy about a book that hasn't given itself over to you yet--sometimes I'm the most inspired by imagining what the contents of an unread book might be. ~ Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude — Leah Price

When I was Allie the Fringer, I used to collect books like this, from anywhere I could find them. Of Course, in the Fringe, owning them was highly illegal. The vampire lords didn't want their cattle to be able to read - it might put ideas in our heads if they knew what life was like before. But one of my greatest secrets was that I could read. My mom had taught me when she was still alive, and I'd clung to that accomplishment fiercely. It was the one thing the vampires couldn't take from me. — Julie Kagawa

The truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more. — Gabriel Zaid

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

To retire by the age of 35 was my goal. I wasn't sure how I was going to get there though. I knew I would end up owning my own business someday, so I figured my challenge was to learn as much as anyone about all businesses. I believed that every job I took was really me getting paid to learn about a new industry. I spent as much time as I could, learning and reading everything about business I could get my hands on. I used to go into the library for hours and hours reading business books and magazines. — Mark Cuban

So this is supposed to be the how, and when, and why, and what or reading - about the way that, when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when books don't stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you'd rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time. "We talked about books," says a character in Charles Baxter's wonderful Feast of Love, "how boring they were to read, but how you loved them anyway. Anyone who hasn't felt like that isn't owning up. — Nick Hornby

You should own stuff, but make sure they are indispensable stuff. A family of three can simplify to the point of owning just three beds, two couches, three dressers, one table, few chairs, one desk, eight plates, eight glasses, eight bowls and some toys and books for the kids. — George Lucas

You can possess a book without really owning it, though. Beyond ownership in a commercial or legal sense, there's ownership of an emotional or metaphysical kind - when a book speaks so powerfully to us that we feel it's ours exclusively: that it exists just tor us. People we meet sometimes have this effect too; they look into our eyes, and speak in a hushed, intimate voice, and make us feel we're uniquely important to them - before going on to do the same to someone else. In life, we call these people flirts. The best books are flirtatious, too, since they seem to be ours alone when in reality they're anyone's. — Blake Morrison

Buy ammunition! Remember that a man cannot have too many books, too many wines, or too much ammunition. Our adversaries on the other side are reaching for the excuse of lead poisoning. If they can push that idea through, you may wind up still owning your guns but without anything to shoot in them. — Jeff Cooper

Zaid's finest moment, however, comes in his second paragraph, when he says that "the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more."
That's me! And you, probably! That's us! — Nick Hornby

He pulls up outside my duplex. I belatedly realize he's not asked me where I live - yet he knows. But then he sent the books, of course he knows where I live. What able, cell-phone-tracking, helicopter owning, stalker wouldn't. — E.L. James

After owning books, almost the next best thing is talking about them. — Charles Nodier

I've done 80 books and if anyone has entertained the idea of owning one of my books, I think this is the book that covers all the bases. I'm very proud of it. — Art Wolfe

I love my Kindle, but there are many books that I need to physically own. I think having the choice makes all the difference. Instant gratification - buying a book digitally and owning it sixty seconds later - really is a revolutionary act. — Chuck Hogan

Papa thought that any book worth reading twice was worth owning. So instead of buying desserts, we bought books. — Natalie S. Bober

There was something about the possession of a book that was important to me. Owning it gave me proprietary rights on the story. It meant that I could read as quickly or as slowly as I liked. No expectations, no deadlines, no proscriptions on bent spines or crumpled pages. I was not gentle on my books. I read while I ate, I read in the bathtub. At night, I rolled over on top of my books that had fallen between the covers as I dozed. For me, the worn pages and tattered covers were a sign of devotion. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, the books I read were only real when they were loved. And I understood that love was not always gentle. — Georgia Bell

A book worth reading is worth owning. — John Ruskin

You know, they never talk about this part of owning a sword in books." "Yeah, and girls don't menstruate in books either." Donovan gaped at me. I grinned back at him. "What? It's true! Ever read a romance novel? Talk about unrealistic! That whole vampire boyfriend thing would be over the second she started getting her period. — Elizabeth A. Reeves

I would browse for half an hour or so in the secondhand bookstores in the neighborhood. Owning my own 'library' was my only materialistic ambition; in fact, trying to decide which two of these thousands of books to buy that week, I would frequently get so excited that by the time the purchase was accomplished I had to make use of the bookseller's toilet facilities. I don't believe that either microbe or laxative has ever affected me so strongly as the discovery that I was all at once the owner of a slightly soiled copy of Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity in the original English edition. — Philip Roth