Profitable Mining

Here's a quote from fairly late in Tropic of Cancer.

I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it: we must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and soul.

Although this is pretty much exactly what I'm doing with The List, I must vehemently disagree that a book with only one great page is worth seeking out. There are enough books in the world that if you only seek the ones with one hundred great pages at minimum, you'll have more than enough to read over the course of a long life.