More quotes by Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night

"If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are not, and cannot be."
"There is a line of poetry, a sentence in a fable, a word in an essay, by which my existence is justified; find that line, and immortality is assured."
"My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices."
"It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed."
"Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth."