Susan Orlean Quotes

Hardcovers will never completely disappear. They are delightful to hold; they feel weighty and substantial. But my anecdotal evidence suggests that the world is changing.

Digital texts are all well and good, but books on shelves are a presence in your life. As such, they become a part of your day-to-day existence, reminding you, chastising you, calling to you. Plus, book collecting is, hands down, the greatest pastime in the world.

I don't have an e-reader. One reason is that I like to dog-ear the page when I find a particularly good sentence or passage.

Those wealthy people purchase books to put on their book shelves for display rather than for reading.

There's been a fragmentation of how the market functions, but I believe printed books are here to stay. People like the tactile experience, the smell of them; there's a great romance to them.

I don't know where everything is going, but I'm pretty confident that people like books - the objects. So I'm going to go on that -they're not going to disappear.

I myself love getting cookbooks and novels that some congenial person has already tried and liked.

I always have been and will remain someone who loves real, 3D, substantial books. And I don't believe that it's a wistful, nostalgic interest like vinyl collectors. It's not the same thing.

The library was one more essential in the parade of rooms in a big 18th-century house - and part of the required kit ever afterwards. The important thing was to have the books, not actually read them.

I still buy actual books. The smell, having it in your hands - there's really no substitute.

I got my iPad, and I'm trying to buy books on that, but I kind of like a book. At the end of my life, when I'm old, I want to have all these shelves full of books. So I'm just gonna do the book thing.

I have to admit that I am really partial to the look and feel of a book. I have been that way my entire life.

Hardcover and paperback forever. Someone carve that into a tree.

Books are an ancient and proven medium. Their physical form inspires passion.

I love bookshelves, and stacks of books, spines, typography, and the feel of pages between my fingertips. I love bookmarks, and old bindings, and stars in margins next to beautiful passages. I love exuberant underlinings that recall to me a swoon of language-love from a long-ago reading, something I hoped to remember. I love book plates, and inscriptions in gifts from loved ones, I love author signatures, and I love books sitting around reminding me of them, being present in my life, being. I love books.

I really like looking at other people's book collections when I'm at someone's house. I think it is an amazing cross section of a person's brain and lifestyle. I think everyone should photograph their book spines and make a website. Seriously.

Reading is such a personal thing to me. I'd much rather give someone a gift certificate to a bookstore, and let that person choose his or her own books.

It's different in Scotland. People who come to readings are more interested in literature as such, but the readership in general is really quite diverse. It's a cliche, but it's said that people who read my books don't read any other books, and you do get that element.

I don't want to read a book on a device. I like a book with a hard cover and text on a piece of paper. I like magazines. I don't care if I carry around 100 lbs. of magazines; I'd rather do that than look at them on the Internet.

As an object itself, to me, books today are such a rare entity - I want mine to be something where, if left on the kitchen table, a child could pick it up. It can visually tell a story.

Of course I always like going to bookstores, but at stores, you're mostly meeting kids who are already into reading.

I read books. Remember those? I read them, on paper.

I like to read everything, really, especially autobiographies.

Books look handsome and it's a real singular experience getting to go to a bookstore. I don't want to not do that.

I like very much to read novels. I like very much some writers.