New York, the nation's thyroid gland.

A critic is a gong at a railroad crossing clanging loudly and vainly as the train goes by.

When you sell a man a book, you don't sell him 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life.

I wish there could be an international peace conference of booksellers, for (you will smile at this) my own conviction is that the future happiness of the world depends in no small measure on them and on the librarians.

My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.

Perhaps this is an age when men think bravely of the human spirit; for surely they have a strange lust to lay it bare.

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!