1.
When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness.
Vincent Starrett
2.
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.
Vincent Starrett
3.
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.
Vincent Starrett
4.
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.
Vincent Starrett
5.
Only those things the heart believes are true.
Vincent Starrett
6.
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.
Vincent Starrett