A person could love one book

"A person could love one book , at most a few—beyond this was a form of promiscuity. Those who talk about books as commodities are inauthentic, just as those who collect acquaintances can be superficial in their friendships. A novel you like resembles a friend. You read it and reread it , getting to know it better. Like a friend, you accept it the way it is; you do not judge it . Montaigne was asked “why” he and the writer Etienne de la Boétie were friends—the kind of question people ask you at a cocktail party as if you knew the answer, or as if there were an answer to know. It was typical of Montaigne to reply, “Parce que c’était lui, p arce que c’était moi” (because it was him and because it was me)."