51 Quotes by Helene Hanff

I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest.

Did I tell you I finally found the perfect page-cutter? It’s a pearl-handled fruit knife. My mother left me a dozen of them, I keep one in the pencil cup on my desk. Maybe I go with the wrong kind of people but i’m just not likely to have twelve guests all sitting around simultaneously eating fruit.

And for at least that moment, I wouldn’t have traded the hundreds of books I’ve read for the few I know almost by heart.

Why is it that people who wouldn’t dream of stealing anything else think it’s perfectly all right to steal books?

It’s against my principles to buy a book I haven’t read, it’s like buying a dress you haven’t tried on.

I do think it’s a very uneven exchange of Christmas presents. You’ll eat yours up in a week and have nothing left to show for it by New Year’s Day. I’ll have mine till the day I die – and die happy in the knowledge that I’m leaving it behind for someone else to love. I shall sprinkle pale pencil marks through it pointing out the best passages to some book-lover yet unborn.

I personally can’t think of anything less sacrosanct than a bad book or even a mediocre book.

My problem is that while other people are reading fifty books I’m reading one book fifty times. I only stop when at the bottom of page 20, say, I realize I can recite pages 21 and 22 from memory. Then I put the book away for a few years.

I liked reading about the nun who ate so dainty with her fingers she never dripped any grease on herself. I’ve never been able to make that claim and I use a fork.