Book Hoarding Quotes

The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger (tutor to Nero) complained that his peers were wasting time and money accumulating too many books, admonishing that "the abundance of books is a distraction." Instead, Seneca recommended focusing on a limited number of good books, to be read thoroughly and repeatedly.

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have left me.

I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything.

Sometimes, looking at the many books I have at home, I feel I shall die before I come to the end of them, yet I cannot resist the temptation of buying new books. Whenever I walk into a bookstore and find a book on one of my hobbies — for example, Old English or Old Norse poetry — I say to myself, “What a pity I can’t buy that book, for I already have a copy at home.

As a rule people don't collect books; they let books collect themselves.

Some women have a weakness for shoes... I can go barefoot if necessary. I have a weakness for books.

One of the maddening ironies of writing books is that it leaves so little time for reading others'. My bedside is piled with books, but it's duty reading: books for book research, books for review. The ones I pine for are off on a shelf downstairs.

The rest, with very little exaggeration, was books. Meant-to-be-picked-up books. Permanently-left-behind books. Uncertain-what-to-do-with books. But books, books. Tall cases lined three walls of the room, filled to and beyond capacity. The overflow had been piled in stacks on the floor. There was little space left for walking, and none whatever for pacing.

The book borrower...proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures...as by his failure to read these books.

Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.

I'm really a library man, or second-hand book man.

The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.

...If I don't have twenty or thirty books right here, waiting to be read, I start jonesing. That's my compulsion.

Naturally, I have compensated in my adult years by owning very large numbers of books.

I fall for all those lists of 100 books you must read, and go out and buy most of them.

Haven't read a book for years - keep buying them and never getting round to reading them - I never seem to have the time.

Mr. Pewter led them through to a library, filled with thousands of antiquarian books. 'Impressive, eh?' 'Very,' said Jack. 'How did you amass all these?' 'Well,' said Pewter, 'You know the person who always borrows books and never gives them back?' 'Yes...?' 'I'm that person.

Professors of literature collect books the way a ship collects barnacles, without seeming effort.

I must have books everywhere. They're the soul of a room-they reveal the taste, the interests, and the secrets of whoever lives there.

Our house was littered with books- in the kitchen, under the beds, stuck between the couch pillows--far too many for her the ever finish. I suppose I thought if my grandmother kept up her interests, she wouldn't die; she'd have to stay around to finish the books she was so fond of. "I've got to get to the bottom of this one," she'd say, as if a book were no different from a pond or a lake. I thought she'd go on reading forever but it didn't work out that way.

You ever buy a book and not read it? You feel almost guilty having it up on a bookshelf. People are like, "Hey, how's that book?" "I haven't read it." "Oh, did you just buy it?" "I've had it since high school." "Well, can I borrow it?" "No."

There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli.

What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses like they're trophies. What do you need it for after you read it?

I have a very big apartment in Paris but you can't really move around there anymore; piles of books everywhere. I don't want any more books. I have too many books; sometimes I have to buy another copy of a book that I know I have somewhere in my house or office because I can't find it.

Books, in the plural lose their solidity of substance and become a gas, filling all available space.