Quote #1
'Lord!' he said, 'when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean. Jiminy! If I were the baker or the butcher or the broom huckster, people would run to the gate when I came by - just waiting for my stuff. And here I go loaded with everlasting salvation - yes, ma'am, salvation for their little, stunted minds - and it's hard to make 'em see it. That's what makes it worth while - I'm doing something that nobody else from Nazareth, Maine, to Walla Walla, Washington, has ever thought of. It's a new field, but by the bones of Whitman, it's worth while. That's what this country needs - more books!'