Collecting expresses a free-floating desire that attaches and re-attaches itself — it is a succession of desires. The true collector is in the grip not of what is collected but of collecting.

But, remember, I wish to have the best collection, not just one of the best collections in England.

Every time that I wanted to give up, if I saw an interesting textile, print what ever, suddenly I would see a collection.

A great private collection is a material concentrate that continually stimulates, that overexcites. Not only because it can always be added to, but because it is already too much. The collector’s need is precisely for excess, for surfeit, for profusion. It’s too much — and it’s just enough for me. … A collection is always more than is necessary.

Shall I add a man to my collection?

Some people collect paperweights, or pre-Columbian figures, or old masters, or young mistresses, or tombstone rubbings, or five-minute recipes, or any of a thousand other things including bruises, most of them satisfying, depending on the genes and the bank account and where the heart lies.
My own collection is sunrises; and I find that they have their advantages. Sunrises are usually handsome, they can't possibly be dusted, and they take only a little room, so long as it has a window to see them from. Moreover, I can't give way to the urge to show off my collection to my friends. I can only talk about it, and they needn't listen.

And my intention is to try to form a collection of many such things, which would not be quite unworthy of the title 'heads of the people.' By working hard, boy, I hope to succeed in making something good. It isn't there yet, but I aim at it, and struggle for it. I want something serious, - some thing fresh - something with soul in it! Forward - forward -

Il faut collectionner les pierres qu'on vous jette. C'est le début d'un piédestal.

I want to create a collection of games during my career, so that when I’m on my deathbed I can look back and see that I created all these wonderful things that brought people joy.

Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner.

If it were not for collectors England would be full, so to speak, of rare birds and wonderful butterflies, strange flowers and a thousand interesting things. But happily the collector prevents all that, either killing with his own hands or, by buying extravagantly, procuring people of the lower classes to kill such eccentricities as appear.
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Eccentricity, in fact, is immorality — think over it again if you do not think so now — just as eccentricity in one's way of thinking is madness (I defy you to find another definition that will fit all the cases of either); and if a species is rare it follows that it is not Fitted to Survive. The collector is after all merely like the foot soldier in the days of heavy armour-he leaves the combatants alone and cuts the throats of those who are overthrown. So one may go through England from end to end in the summer time and see only eight or ten commonplace wild flowers, and the commoner butterflies, and a dozen or so common birds, and never be offended by any breach of the monotony.

After I finished my books, I felt I had to do another one and I thought that if I were to choose a subject, it had to be mosques.

I'm not a collector. I don't keep letters, or books, or souvenirs. But I do keep one copy of each translation of my books into a foreign language. Have you ever seen a murder story printed in Singhalese? Wow!

It is good to collect things, but it is better to go on walks.