Book Collectors Quotes

“Like all collectors, I exist in a perpetual state of want that bears no reasonable relationship to the quantity of unread books mounting up on my shelves.”
― Pamela Paul, My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues

“It is possible that the most misunderstood man upon earth is the collector of books…”
― Vincent Starrett, Penny Wise & Book Foolish

“I am obsessed with books.
I am a book collector.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Man wants what he cannot have, or what is difficult to procure, or what he must wade through the blood of other men to get. So with collectors.”
― Vincent Starrett, Penny Wise & Book Foolish

“Book-hunters are the most determined and interesting collectors in the world. I know of no passion to equal it.”
― Gelett Burgess, The Master of Mysteries: Being an Account of the Problems Solved by Astro, Seer of Secrets, and His Love Affair With Valeska Wynne His Assistant

“Okay, so I know I’m not the last bookseller. People still sell books. But I’m one of the last of a certain kind of bookseller. The kind that for six hundred years rooted around basements, book bins, and bookstores looking for, sometimes, rare books or, more often, secondhand books. They were the hunter-gatherers of the book business, the travelers and pick-ers, who spent their lives saving books that might otherwise have been lost. They are, now, nearly extinct, driven to ground by the machines—the cell phones, personal computers, and, especially, the internet—that replaced them at the end of the twentieth century.”
― Gary Goodman, The Last Bookseller: A Life in the Rare Book Trade

“ஒருவகையில், புத்தகங்களை வைக்க இடமில்லாத நெருக்கடிதான் புத்தகம் படிப்பதைக் காப்பாற்றி வைத்திருக்கிறது என்பேன். வீட்டில் மிகப் பெரிய நாலகங்களை அமைத்தவர்கள் அதன்பிறகு படிப்பதையே விட்ட கதையை நான் அறிவேன். நெருக்கடியான இடத்திற்குள் மறைத்தும் ஒளித்தும் சண்டையிட்டும் சேகரிக்கப்பட்ட புத்தகங்களே நம்மை மறுபடி வாசிக்கத் தூண்டுகின்றன.”
― S. Ramakrishnan, இன்றில்லை எனினும் [Indrillai Eninum]

“Jack, I'm going to tell you a story. A runner took a book to a famous dealer and said: 'I've got something rare here.' 'Yes,' replied the dealer, 'but customers who want it are rarer.'

Then my book is worth nothing?

Nothing whatsoever. It's a volume of old sermons, which in the trade are pretty well unsaleable. Your book is a first edition all right, and probably there never was a second, for obvious reasons.”
― Bernard Farmer, Death of a Bookseller