I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. – Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991

Sit bona librorum copia. – Horace (There are plenty of good books. Let me have a good supply of books.)

If the book is second-hand, I leave all its markings intact, the spoor of previous readers, fellow-travellers who have recorded their passage by means of scribbled comments, a name on the fly-leaf, a bus ticket to mark a certain page. – Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night