We live for books.
I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.
The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.
[I] read books because I love them, not because I think I should read them.
If you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs.
We lusty bibliophiles know that reading, unlike just about anything else, is both good for you and loads of fun.
All good and true book-lovers practice the pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed ... No book can be appreciated until it has been slept with and dreamed over.
Should he give free reign to his desires, the bibliomaniac can ruin his life along with the lives of his loved ones. He'll often take better care of his books than of his own health; he'll spend more on fiction than he does on food; he'll be more interested in his library than in his relationships, and, since few people are prepared to live in a place where every available surface is covered with piles of books, he'll often find himself alone, perhaps in the company of a neglected and malnourished cat. When he dies, all but forgotten, his body might fester for days before a curious neighbor grows concerned about the smell.
Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.
I perceived quite early that I was a reader, and most of the people I came into contact with were not. It made a barrier. What they wanted to talk about were things they had eaten, touched, or done. What I wanted to talk about was what I had read.
We ought to recollect ... that a book consists, like man, from whom it draws its lineage, of a body and a soul.
