WIST Quotations

Christie, Agatha -- The Clocks, ch. 13 (1963)

Dave — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 16:32:05 +0000

I sidled through the doorway. It was necessary to sidle since precariously arranged books impinged more and more every day on the passageway from the street. Inside, it was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way around. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) English writer
The Clocks, ch. 13 (1963)
(Source)

McCracken, Elizabeth -- The Giant’s House [Peggy] (1997)

Dave — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 22:57:36 +0000

Library books were, I suddenly realized, promiscuous, ready to lie in the arms of anyone who asked. Not like bookstore books, which married their purchasers, or were brokered for marriages to others.

Elizabeth McCracken (b. 1966) American author
The Giant’s House [Peggy] (1997)
(Source)

De Botton, Alain -- The Consolations of Philosophy, ch. 4 “Consolation for Inadequacy” (2000)

Dave — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 21:40:48 +0000

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the number of books that were written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to.

Alain de Botton (b. 1969) Swiss-British author
The Consolations of Philosophy, ch. 4 “Consolation for Inadequacy” (2000)
(Source)

Seinfeld, Jerry -- SeinLanguage (1993)

Dave — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 16:45:19 +0000

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of physical evidence we have that people are still thinking.

Jerry Seinfeld (b. 1954) American comedian
SeinLanguage (1993)

Beecher, Henry Ward -- Essay (1855), “Book-Stores, Books,” Star Papers, “Experiences of Nature,” ch. 21

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Alas! Where is human nature so weak as in a book-store! Speak of the appetite for drink; or of a bon-vivant’s relish for dinner! What are these mere animal throes and ragings compared with those fantasies of taste, of those yearning of the imagination, of those insatiable appetites of intellect, which bewilder a student in a great bookseller’s temptation-hall?

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Essay (1855), “Book-Stores, Books,” Star Papers, “Experiences of Nature,” ch. 21
(Source)

Originally published in his "STAR" column in the New York Independent," and is dated May 25 without a year given. This essay, separate from the original book, is usually titled "Subtleties of Book Buyers."