Linden

“A library of mostly unread books is far more inspiring than a library of books already read. There’s nothing more exciting than finishing a book, and walking over to your shelves to figure out what you’re going to read next."

[The Wonderful and Terrible Habit of Buying Too Many Books, PWxyz (news blog of Publishers Weekly), February 16th, 2012]”
― Gabe Habash

“The visitor enters and says, "What a lot of books! Have you read them all?" ...The best answer is the one always used by Roberto Leydi: "And more, dear sir, many more," which freezes the adversary and plunges him into a state of awed admiration. But I find it merciless and angst-generating. Now I have fallen back on the riposte: "No, these are the ones I have to read by the end of the month. I keep the others in my office.”
― Umberto Eco

“One day Shizuo Kakutani was teaching a class at Yale. He wrote down a lemma on the blackboard and announced that the proof was obvious. One student timidly raised his hand and said that it wasn't obvious to him. Could Kakutani explain?

After several moments' thought, Kakutani realized that he could not himself prove the lemma. He apologized, and said that he would report back at their next class meeting.

After class, Kakutani, went straight to his office. He labored for quite a time and found that he could not prove the pesky lemma. He skipped lunch and went to the library to track down the lemma. After much work, he finally found the original paper. The lemma was stated clearly and succinctly. For the proof, the author had written, 'Exercise for the reader.”
― Steven G. Krantz, Mathematical Apocrypha: Stories and Anecdotes of Mathematicians and the Mathematical