We call a child's mind 'small' simply by habit; perhaps it is larger than ours is, for it can take in almost anything without effort.

New York is Babylon : Brooklyn is the truly Holy City. New York is the city of envy, office work, and hustle; Brooklyn is the region of homes and happiness.... There is no hope for New Yorkers, for their glory in Their skyscraping sins; but in Brooklyn there is the wisdom of the lowly.

A doctor is advertised by the bodies he cures. My business is advertised by the minds I stimulate. And let me tell you that the book business is different from other trades. People don't know they want books. I can see just by looking at you that your mind is ill for lack of books but you are blissfully unaware of it!

When you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book.

Between ourselves, there is no such thing, abstractly, as a 'good' book. A book is 'good' only when it meets some human hunger or refutes some human error.

Blessed is he who has never been tempted; for he knows not the frailty of his rectitude.

Words are a commodity in which there is never any slump.