I wanted to see London the way old people want to see home before they die.

- Helene Hanff

If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much.

- Helene Hanff

I liked reading about the nun who ate so dainty with her fingers she never dripped any grease on herself. I've never been able to make that claim and…

- Helene Hanff

I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone …

- Helene Hanff

My problem is that while other people are reading fifty books I'm reading one book fifty times. I only stop when at the bottom of page 20, say, I rea…

- Helene Hanff

I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest.

- Helene Hanff

Talent is the infinite capacity for taking pains. Genius is the infinite capacity for achievement without taking any pains at all.

- Helene Hanff

Why is it that people who wouldn't dream of stealing anything else think it's perfectly all right to steal books?

- Helene Hanff

What fortune teller would ever have had the nerve to predict that the best years of my life would turn out to be my old age?

- Helene Hanff