Bookstore Quotes

“Don't patronize the chain bookstores. Every time I see some author scheduled to read and sign his books at a chain bookstore, I feel like telling him he's stabbing the independent bookstores in the back.”

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”

“Usually when I enter a bookstore, I feel immediately calm. Bookstores are, for me, what churches are for other people. My breath gets slower and deeper as I peruse the shelves. I believe that books contain messages I am meant to receive. I’m not normally superstitious, but I’ve even had books fall from shelves and land at my feet. Books are my missives from the universe.”

“They ended up at the Old Corner Bookstore, which Brian had read about in a tour guide to Boston. "Longfellow and Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell Holmes used to read here. Let's go in." Brian nudged the girls until they obeyed.It was a regular bookstore, less history-minded than Brian had expected. In fact, the local history shelves were quite mangeable. I'll buy one book, he thought. This will get me launched in actual reading. Out of the zillions of choices, I'll find one here.Brian picked out Paul Revere and the World He Lived In. It was thick and somehow exciting, with its chapter headings and scholarly notes and bibliography.”

“This is a feminist bookstore. There is no humor section.”

“Wherever I go, bookstores are still the closest thing to a town square.”

“...bookstores, libraries... they're the closest thing I have to a church.”

“A place is not really a place without a bookstore.”

“those of us who read because we love it more than anything, who feel about bookstores the way some people feel about jewelers...”

“In my head, owning a bookstore meant I could hide in the back reading all day, while other bookworms came and went without a sound, resembling almost a library or, better yet, a convent. People never talked to me or to each other, we were just a secret society of readers, alone but together in silent unity. In reality though, owning a bookstore meant that I never actually had time to read a book myself. And being a newer bookstore, meant that I was broke and couldn’t actually afford staff so I had to do most things myself. Alone. In front of people. With my face showing. And sometimes having to make eye contact. It was awful.”