The more I like a book, the more slowly I read. this spontaneous talking back to a book is one of the things that makes reading so valuable.
The more I like a book, the more reluctant I am to turn the page. Lovers, even book lovers, tend to cling. No one-night stands or "reads" for them.
We don't simply read books. We become them.
A book is meant not only to be read, but to haunt you, to importune you like a lover or a parent, to be in your teeth like a piece of gristle.
The moment a book is lent I begin to miss it.
I feel about lending a book the way most fathers feel about their daughters living with a man out of wedlock.
A bookcase is as good as a view, as much of a panorama as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms and zephyrs.
If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.
The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.