Books & Reading Quotes

“Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis XI borrowed the works of Rasis, the Arabian physician, from the faculty of medicine in Paris, he not only deposited in pledge a considerable quantity of plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed, binding himself under a great forfeiture to restore it... When any person made a present of a book to a church, or a monastery, in which were the only libraries during several ages, it was deemed a donative of such value, that he offered it on the altar pro remedio animæ suæ, in order to obtain the forgiveness of sins.”

“That afternoon, after closing the shop, my father suggested that we stroll along to the Els Quatre Gats, a café on Calle Montsió, where Barceló and his bibliophile knights of the round table gathered to discuss the finer points of decadent poets, dead languages, and neglected, moth-ridden masterpieces.”

“I can be perfectly happy by myself. With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?”

“Through all of my youth these books were my companions, and now, as I write these lines, after sixty years, they still look down upon me with their old friendliness.”

“One cannot celebrate books sufficiently. After saying his best, still something better remains to be spoken in their praise.”

“Judith stood before her little library in the dark November dawn, with a candle in her hand, scanning the familiar titles with weary eyes.... these last few days she had taken to waking at dawn, to lying for hours wide-eyed in her little white bed, while the slow day grew. But to‐day it was intolerable, she could bear it no longer.... She would try a book; not a very hopeful remedy in her own opinion, but one which [those] who were troubled by sleeplessness, regarded, she knew, as the best thing under the circumstances.”

“He led, at this season, the most home-keeping, book-buying life, and Old French texts made his evenings dear to him.”

“Who gave their lives for these can know no death. For I have walked with them in mortal guise Through woodland ways and swarming city streets; Yea, have I met the gaze of Shelley's eyes, And in 'Hyperion' kissed the lips of Keats.”

“Titles of Books. — Decoys to catch purchasers.”

“Man's greatest friend is a good book.”

“He was fatigued with active life; and he loved his fatigue. Seated beside the fire in his big arm-chair, he used to read from morning till night.... it was utterly useless attempting to interest him in anything practical whatever.”

“Your shadow, left on the pages of every book you read.”