Quotes from Vincent Starrett

When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness.

The day before yesterday has always been a day of glamor, of gilt and glory. The present is sordid and prosaic. Time colors history as it does a meerschaum pipe.

When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness.

But there can be no grave for Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson...Shall they not always live in Baker Street? Are they not there this moment, as one writes? Outside, the hansoms rattle through the rain, and Moriarty plans his latest devilry. Within, the sea-coal flames upon the hearth and Holmes and Watson take their well-won case...So they still live for all that love them well; in a romantic chamber of the heart, in a nostalgic country of the mind, where it is always 1895.

It is possible that the most misunderstood man upon earth is the collector of books…

I hold a theory that, sooner or later, if a man but live long enough, certain books destined for his peculiar delight will find him, however obscure they or he may be.

Only those things the heart believes are true.

Every new search is a voyage to the Indies, a quest for buried treasure, a journey to the end of the rainbow; and whether or not at the end there shall be turned up a pot of gold or merely a delightful volume, there are always wonders along the way.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane As night descends upon the fabled street: A lonely hansom splashes through the rain, And ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet. Here though the world explode, these two survive, And it is always eighteen ninety-five.

Superficially it may appear that I am more interested in books than in people; but I think it nearer the mark to say that I am more interested in people as they are revealed to me in books than as they reveal themselves to me in daily contact.

Man wants what he cannot have, or what is difficult to procure, or what he must wade through the blood of other men to get. So with collectors.

A book collector is mad enough to begin with, Watson; but tempt him with some such bait as this Shakespeare quarto and he is bereft of all sanity.

Old books, yes! They are the true comforters; and principally because they are old and familiar. Many excellent new tales and poems and dramas are added yearly to the catalogues, and and some of these in time will stand beside the great companions under discussion; but only Time (and you and I and all other lovers of good books) will bring about their survival.

He thinks he knows it all," said Anstey. "Most fools do," retorted Thorndyke. "They arrive at their knowledge by intuition—a deuced easy road and cheap travelling too.

Some delightful inscriptions are found in second-hand books. One, the most famous of all, may be found in every bookshop in the nation, repeated in a thousand and one volumes with only a single change of phrase in each. It is this: '______, with love from Momma.

The manner of a fool,' said Mr. Blackwood, 'when it masks the mental processes of a wise man, is an advantage of great worth to a detective.

THE LONDON "SEASON" OF THE YEAR 1886, UPON ITS surface, was much as other and similar seasons had been before it. No blare of sudden trumpets marked its advent. Victoria was still placidly upon her throne; Lord Salisbury—for the second time—had ousted Gladstone from the premier's chair; Ireland was seething with outrage and sedition; and Beecham's Pills were "universally admitted to be a marvellous antidote for nervous disorders.

Trees that are only trees by daylight are many and various other things at night. They are lurking, impossible monsters of the animal world or crouching human ruffians, of ferocious aspect and intent, depending upon their shape, size, color, distance from the beholder, and general state of well-being or decay. One's own well-being has some bearing on the matter. Strong nerves are needed to walk among them in the darkness.

when a man blends truth and falsehood skillfully in one comprehensive statement, it is difficult to tell the veracities from the fibs.

The day before yesterday always has been a glamour day. The present is sordid and prosaic. Time colors history as it does a meerschaum pipe.