Neat books

The reason I don’t underline interesting sentences, phrases, paragraphs in books (owned, not borrowed)…

• isn’t that I want to keep books neat. I used to think about this, but later realized any such attempts served no useful purpose.
• isn’t that I don’t want to come back to the books. I usually flip pages of books I had read long ago.
• isn’t that it sounds too student-ish. I *am* educating self.

• IS that I usually mess up the sentence below while trying to draw a straight (under)line.

That’s why I find highlighter pens more convenient. Escapism.