{"author":"Helene Hanff","author_id":"Helene+Hanff","total_quotes":6,"quotes":[{"text":"I despair of ever getting it through anybody's head I am not interested in bookshops, I am interested in what's written in the books. I don't browse in bookshops, I browse in libraries, where you can take a book home and read it, and if you like it you go to a bookshop and buy it.","author":"Helene Hanff","tags":["book","bookstore","library-books"],"id":18370,"author_id":"Helene+Hanff"},{"text":"It looks too new and pristine ever to have been read by anyone else, but it has been: it keeps falling open at the most delightful places as the ghost of its former owner points me to things I've never read before.","author":"Helene Hanff","tags":["reading"],"id":76678,"author_id":"Helene+Hanff"},{"text":"If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much.","author":"Helene Hanff","tags":["british","debt","england","kiss","please","writers"],"id":104743,"author_id":"Helene+Hanff"},{"text":"I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.","author":"Helene Hanff","tags":["book-lover","books"],"id":137318,"author_id":"Helene+Hanff"},{"text":"Standing there, staring at the long shelves crammed with books, I felt myself relax and was suddenly at peace.","author":"Helene Hanff","tags":["books","bookstore","library"],"id":271206,"author_id":"Helene+Hanff"},{"text":"I tell you, life is extraordinary. A few years ago I couldn’t write anything or sell anything, I’d passed the age where you know all the returns are in, I’d had my chance and done my best and failed. And how was I to know the miracle waiting to happen round the corner in late middle age? 84, Charing Cross Road was no best seller, you understand; it didn’t make me rich or famous. It just got me hundreds of letters and phone calls from people I never knew existed; it got me wonderful reviews; it restored a self-confidence and self-esteem I’d lost somewhere along the way, God knows how many years ago. It brought me to England. It changed my life.","author":"Helene Hanff","tags":["dream","success"],"id":417480,"author_id":"Helene+Hanff"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":6,"pages":1}}