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"Lord!" he said, "when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue — you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night — there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean. Jiminy! If I were the baker or the butcher or the broom huckster, people would run to the gate when I came by — just waiting for my stuff. And here I go loaded with everlasting salvation — yes, ma'am, salvation for their little, stunted minds — and it's hard to make 'em see it. That's what makes it worth while — I'm doing something that nobody else from Nazareth, Maine, to Walla Walla, Washington, has ever thought of. It's a new field, but by the bones of Whitman, it's worth while. That's what this country needs — more books!"
--
Parnassus on Wheels (1917)

 

Christopher Morley

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Your book is going to be such a bestseller because it's a colourful, astonishing story. It's absolutely unbelievable. The publishers don't have to worry about whether this thing is going to sell. The only question they're going to have to wonder about is whether they've got enough paper in the forest to print the f**king books. That's all they have to worry about. I'll tell you this, if there ain't a good book in this, there's not a good book in Canadian history. So there you go. I don't know about other books, but boy this one's going to sell. I mean the others, you've done okay, but I'll tell you, you're going to be able to retire for sure. If this thing holds, it's going to be quite remarkable. I'd be very surprised, Peter, if by the time it's all over if there weren't two books in this thing for you. Let's let the books go out first, and then do the television.

 

Brian Mulroney

 

The current publishing scene is extremely good for the big, popular books. They sell them brilliantly, market them and all that. It is not good for the little books. And really valuable books have been allowed to go out of print. In the old days, the publishers knew that these difficult books, the books that appeal only to a minority, were very productive in the long run. Because they're probably the books that will be read in the next generation. It's heart-breaking how often I have to say when I'm giving talks, "This book is out of print. This book is out of print." It's a roll call of dead books.

 

Doris Lessing

 

A presentation copy...is a copy of a book whoch does not sell, sent you by the author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which, if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author, he expects from you a book of yours, which does not sell, in return.

 

Charles Lamb

 

You will want a book which contains not man's thoughts, but God's — not a book that may amuse you, but a book that can save you — not even a book that can instruct you, but a book on which you can venture an eternity — not only a book which can give relief to your spirit, but redemption to your soul — a book which contains salvation, and conveys it to you, one which shall at once be the Saviour's book and the sinner's.

 

John Selden