Quote of the Day

From "The Anatomy of Bibliomania" by Holbrook Jackson (1874-1948):

"Some have been afflicted by bibliomania through idleness, and for them there is small hope of cure; ­others, I count myself among them, from excess of ­affairs. Many, like asses that wear out their time for provender, are so buried in the minor and immediate tasks of earning a living as to get confounded promptly and permanently with the victims of commercial ­ambition, whence it comes to pass that, slily and ­insensibly perverted, nerves frayed and brains dulled, they take to books as sick souls take to drugs. They hoard at first against a time of leisure when they may perchance read, and end by hoarding for the sake of hoarding, thus allying themselves with those dizzards who wallow among possessions which they cannot use, and who die before they have lived."

Thanks to the WSJ for digging this one up, which cuts a little close to the bone for me.