The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.

It__ remarkable that a device, which fits in your pocket, can hold thousands of books. But a room full of books is an entirely different kind of remarkable.

If you're frightened of the countless number of books in the library, you'll never write anything, until you close your eyes and hold the pen.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method._ Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library

Deserted libraries hold the shades of writers who worked within, and are haunted by their absence.

An ordinary man can surround himself with two thousand books and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is always possible to be happy.