Bookselling Quotes

Send me your favorite bookselling quotes and I'll put them here. I'll credit you if you want me to, but I definitely need the quote's originator to include it, and, if it's you, I have to credit you. House rules.

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“To write books is easy, it requires only pen and ink and the ever-patient paper. To print books is a little more difficult, because genius so often rejoices in illegible handwriting. To read books is more difficult still, because of a tendency to go to sleep. But the most difficult task of all that

a mortal man can embark on is to sell a book.” 

-- Stanley Unwin, British publisher, 19 December 1884 – 13 October 1968

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“Despite the promise of four days of sun and overly sweet wine, Richard was sporting a sour puss. But then that was to be expected - he sold books for a living, after all.” 

-- Charlie Hill, Books

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"Lord! when you sell a man a book you don’t sell 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." 

-- Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels
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"I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose."
-- George Carlin

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"We were just a one-room bookstore; we didn't have any money for lawyers."
--  Lawrence Ferlinghetti