Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen.

 

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen.
--
Joineriana: or The Book of Scraps (London: 1772), Vol. I, p. 40

 

Samuel Paterson

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Reading, like all work, has its rules. A perfect knowledge of a few writers and a few subjects is more valuable than a superficial one of a great many. The fine points of a piece of writing are seldom apparent at first reading. In youth, one should search among books as one searches the world for friends, and once these friends are found, chosen, and adopted, one must go into retirement with them. Intimacy with Montaigne, Saint Simon, Retz, Balzac, or Proust would be enough to enrich one's whole life.

 

Andre Maurois

 

...were I in charge of either of the Big Two, my “solution” to the ills of the industry would be to “reset” all the books to where they were at some arbitrarily chosen point in time. Usually I say 1976, for many reasons good and bad. Mostly because that’s the last year when, while actually still working in the Biz, I really still felt like a fan. (2007)

 

John Byrne

 

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

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

 

My dear friends, now and forever, I renounce, have renounced and will go on renouncing copyrights. My only wish is that these books be sold at low price, affordable to the poor, affordable to all the children of God. I wish that even the poorest, most destitute citizen be able to obtain these books with the few pennies he carries in his pocket. In fact, I do not have any income; I do not demand anything in exchange for my works. Whosoever wants to publish them, let him publish for the benefit of deiseased mankind.

 

Samael Aun Weor