A Quote by Helene Hanff

It's against my principles to buy a book I haven't read, it's like buying a dress you haven't tried on.

Helene Hanff

Quote Topics

Against Book Buy Buying Dress Like Principles Read Tried

Quote Author

Helene Hanff
American - Writer
April 15, 1916 - April 9, 1997

You ever buy a book and not read it? You feel almost guilty having it up on a bookshelf. People are like, "Hey, how's that book?" "I haven't read it." "Oh, did you just buy it?" "I've had it since high school." "Well, can I borrow it?" "No."

Jim Gaffigan

My depth of purse is not so great Nor yet my bibliophilic greed, That merely buying doth elate: The books I buy I like to read: Still e'en when dawdling in a mead, Beneath a cloudless summer sky, By bank of Thames, or Tyne, or Tweed, The books I read — I like to buy.

A. Edward Newton

I do feel kind of guilty sometimes 'cause, like, I could buy myself a $5,000 dress or a $3,000 dress, and I'm buying these things, but I'm knowing that my cousin need money for the rent. And then I gotta tell myself, 'Stop feeling guilty. You worked for this.'

Cardi B

If you ask me what I think people should be getting next season, I’ll tell you what I’d like them to buy—nothing. I’d like people to stop buying and buying and buying.

Vivienne Westwood

When I go to buy a book, I always ask if it is right for me at this time, something I need right now. I think a lot of people go out and buy books because they love to read. They read it really fast and then move on to the next book. I don't do that.

Echo Bodine

I do a lot of curiosity buying; I buy it if I like the album cover, I buy it if I like the name of the band, anything that sparks my imagination. I still like to go to record stores, I like to just wander around and I'll buy whatever catches my attention.

Bruce Springsteen

Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity. Everybody’s buying far too many clothesI mean, I know I’m lucky, I can just take things and borrow them and I’m just okay, but I hate having too many clothes. And I think that poor people should be even more careful. It doesn't mean therefore you have to just buy anything cheap. Instead of buying six things, buy one thing that you really like. Don't keep buying just for the sake of it.

Vivienne Westwood

I'm in the middle of a 25-city book tour, and I like watching what people buy in bookstores. I see people buy books that I strongly suspect they will never read, and as an author, I must tell you, I don't mind this one bit. We buy books aspirationally.

Gabrielle Zevin

Read at least one book a month. This is self-serving, obviously. It's a proven fact that people who read buy more books than people who don't read. In truth, I wish you'd read ten books a month, or at least buy that many.

Randy Pausch

My goal with The Adventures of Captain Underpants was to invent a style which was almost identical to that of a picture book - in a novel format. So I wrote incredibly short chapters and tried to fill each page with more pictures than words. I wanted to create a book that kids who don't like to read would want to read.

Dav Pilkey

Instead of buying six things, buy one thing that you really like. Don't keep buying just for the sake of it.

Vivienne Westwood

[If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases.

Thomas Jefferson

I've been a faithful reader of the great classical documents of economics, or tried to be. The first book in the field that I ever read was Principles of Economics by Alfred Marshall. I suppose subsequently I would have to pick out Keynes, Adam Smith, Marx.