Bookshop Memories By George Orwell Quotes

Many of the people who came to us were of the kind who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop

Given a good pitch and the right amount of capital, any educated person ought to be able to make a small secure living out of a bookshop

there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money. In the end one gets to know these people almost at a glance. For all their big talk there is something moth-eaten and aimless about them.

there are two well-known types of pest by whom every second-hand bookshop is haunted. One is the decayed person smelling of old breadcrusts who comes every day, sometimes several times a day, and tries to sell you worthless books. The other is the person who orders large quantities of books for which he has not the smallest intention of paying.

There are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops.” – George Orwell, Bookshop Memories, 1936.

A bookseller has to tell lies about books, and that gives him a distaste for them; still worse is the fact that he is constantly dusting them and hauling them to and fro. There was a time when I really did love books – loved the sight and smell and feel of them, I mean, at least if they were fifty or more years old. Nothing pleased me quite so much as to buy a job lot of them for a shilling at a country auction. George Orwell, ‘Bookshop Memories