In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar.

Anyone who doubts that caffeine is a drug should read some of the prose composed under its influence.

My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closest. Their selves were on their shelves.

I have never been able to resist a book about books.

When the Irish novelist John McGahern was a child, his sisters unlaced and removed one of his shoes while he was reading. He did not stir. They placed a straw hat on his head. No response. Only when they took away the wooden chair on which he was sitting did he, as he puts it, 'wake out of the book'.

I'd rather have a book, but in a pinch I'll settle for a set of Water Pik instructions.

To use an electronics analogy, closing a book on a bookmark is like pressing the Stop button, whereas when you leave the book facedown, you've only pressed Pause.