“You know, what I've always done is take a look through a book, look at the paper stock, the printing, the publisher, the actual content, and, taking everything into account, I price it. . . . And now I can't. The fact that I can check this book . . . — the fact that I can check this book on the Internet means that I have to check this book on the Internet.” FactsInternetPrice Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore
“It seems shelving is an art, like everything else. I decide to do it exceptionally well.” ArtCareProfessionalismCurateShelve Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore
“It's a nebulous thing, but it is my belief—my experience also—that women do not have the need to collect that men have.” MenWomenNeedCollect Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore
“I think there is no difference between love and infatuation. If it works out, we call it love; if it doesn’t, we shrug our shoulders and say it was infatuation. It’s a hindsight word.” LoveRealInfatuationHindsight Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore
“The Christmas trees are brought from Vermont by monosyllabic men in warm clothes; they seem alien, closer to the earth, silently contemptuous, like gypsies. They bring in their trees and stand them up on the pavements, so that swaths of Broadway are suddenly transformed into dark, pine-scented avenues.” BroadwayChristmas TreeVermontChristmas TreesCulture ClashChristmas In New YorkTransformation Of NatureVermont Men Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore
“But in this case,” he continues, tracing the line of the plasterwork with one finger, “I feel that there is one cliché that sums up my position so admirably that it would be pure egotism to attempt a more interesting periphrasis. Plain speaking, therefore, there is to be. “There is undoubtedly a strong possibility, notwithstanding the vagaries of contingency and misfortune, that my son might have fallen—or might, we could say, have voluntarily jumped, in accordance with the ethical codes with which he has been brought up—for a play you have made with some success, although, as I am persuaded you would concede, very little originality.” Plain speaking if you’re Henry James, perhaps.” HumorRelationshipsPowerMisogynyMenaceHenry JamesIn LawsClass DifferenceClass DividePlain SpeakingCircumlocutionJamesian Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore
“Aristotle didn't have a problem with abortion," she says. "Oh, well, good, that's a comfort," I say.” FeminismMotherhoodAbortionMaternityPro Choice Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore
“Used" is such an odd word, so much stranger than "second-hand." A prefix for condoms, and there's a certain squalor attached to the idea of reusing those.” UsedSecond HandSqualor Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore
“Used books,” as if someone else has had the best of them and you get the sere husk, or the lees, as if a book isn’t the one thing, the one product, that is forever new. There’s no such thing as a used book. Or there’s no such thing as a book if it’s not being used.” Used Books Book:The Bookstore Source: The Bookstore