The Mildest of Vices

“When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness.”

Vincent Starrett, quoted in, On Conan Doyle by Michael Dirda

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“In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.”

Richard de Bury, quoted in The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs

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I love books.

Is it entirely natural? I love my family, but that is biological and to be expected.

Books are supposed to be good for you, but are they really?

I love the search for new books. It’s almost as good as the reading.

Because I am an addict.

Do I love books, or do I depend on them? If I do, is that such a problem?

Am I going to come to great harm in my modest but unquenching hunt for the next book?

It is simple arithmetic that says that there are more books than I could ever read.

How wonderful, I can never exhaust the supply!

Book collecting is the mildest of vices, but it is still a vice nonetheless.