Readers of novels. I sometimes think that I could, if put to it, pick the real readers of novels out of a crowd. They have a strangeness about the eye, almost as if there were an extra bit of lens on the cornea…. The glance of a reader shows me a soul with a different orientation to time… – Sven Birkerts (b.1951), “Notes from a Confession,” The Agni Review, No.22 (1985)

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one. – Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta, "Book Buying"

One cannot celebrate books sufficiently. After saying his best, still something better remains to be spoken in their praise. – A. Bronson Alcott, “Books,” June 1869