I knew books to be objects that loved to cluster and form disordered piles, but here books seemed robbed of their zany capacity to fall about, to conspire. In the library, books behaved themselves.

Ageing is a process of exchanging hope for insight.

I didn’t know then that this was how deep emotion most often comes, from opposite directions and at once, when you are least aware and farthest from yourself.

Don’t be a martyr to your imagination.

It was ugly, but then ugly objects as a general rule are the bravest.

The Arcade, and now Peabody’s, combined to tell me that there was life in objects, in books. It was all about having eyes to see the true meaning of things. As Pike proved daily, books held a kind of magic, an apparent as well as a hidden value.

Die Bücher, die wie auf unserem ersten Bücherregal als Erwachsene stehen haben, erzählen von unseren Vorhaben.

Bruno was a musician with the temperament of an anarchist and the breath of a bartender's dishrag. He gave the lie to bookselling as a genteel occupation.

I drink to not giving a damn . . .

Do you know what the common name for Chardonnet silk is? . . . Rayon. . . . Made from extruded wood pulp. Not silk at all.