Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle
and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there
are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as
wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his
drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at
all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to
have at command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want
concubines-- not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at
their master's call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in
reality.
-- Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost
