War is not horrible all the time, as pacifists seem to believe. There are compensations for everything, and there is compensation in comradeship, int… - William Darling

A wicked generation seeketh ever some new thing and the publishers must publish and the bookseller must book-sell in order to live. (p. 56)

That frivolous young widow ought to have paid for the solace she declared so often she found in books. "I must read to forget." All very well, but she should not forget to pay for the means of forgetfulness. The waters of Lethe may be waters bought without money and without price, but my books ought to be paid for in cash. (p. 178)

I am an unrepentant book lover, and so soaked am I in the love of books that I feel – poor twentieth-century shopkeeper that I am – I feel that Pliny is a man I know, for all the eighteen centuries and more that lie between us. Pliny used to say (you will see it in a translation I have on my shelves) that no book was so bad that some good might be got out of it, and that is my feeling. I – and Pliny – born and bred so differently, feel the same about books and it gives me a flattering sense of rightness – sitting here in this shop among books that Pliny could not have imagined – books written in a language which was not then evolved – the thought makes me feel thrilled. There is no other word for it, but I dare not tell it to anyone. It is an astonishing secret to me that I must enjoy alone. (p. 30)