Words matter. These are the best Old Books Quotes from famous people such as Marilynne Robinson, Yayoi Kusama, Constance Zimmer, Irvine Welsh, Michael Dirda, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I’m attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to me, by famous old books on philosophy or theology that I want to see with my own eyes, by essays on contemporary science, by the literatures of antiquity.
In my home country, there was a little shop with old books, but it was really in the countryside. You couldn’t find English books. I found this very avant-garde American art book that had information about Georgia O’Keeffe. I was very much impressed by her.
I have this obsession with really cool, old books.
You know what it’s like: you don’t want to read your old books again. All you can see are the flaws, what you would do differently.
People sometimes think that I bring home all these old books because I’m addicted, that I’m no better than a hoarder with a houseful of crumbling newspapers.
It’ll take a while for all those strange old books that I love to show up on digital: books that aren’t current bestsellers but aren’t public-domain freebies, either.
I love old books. They tell you stories about their use. You can see where the fingerprints touched the pages as they held the book open. You can see how long they lingered on each page by the finger stains.
I am something of an aficionado of thrift stores. In my youth, I regularly searched their shelves for old books.
Typically, a book is published and gets one season in the sun. Eventually, you write another book, and maybe your old books get a bump, but my books seem to keep being discovered and recommended to new people of all ages.
Who ever converses among old books will be hard to please among the new.
The ‘Backlisted’ podcast describes itself as ‘giving new life to old books’. In each episode, John Mitchinson and Andy Miller are joined by a guest from the world of books who brings along some overlooked gem to enthuse about.
I love to both give and receive very old books.
