"I like to imagine that, on the day after my last, my library and I will crumble together, so that even when I am no more I'll still be with my books."
"Unpacking books is a revelatory activity."
"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."
"If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity."
"In my fool hardy youth, when my friends were dreaming of heroic deeds in the realms of engineering and law, finance and national politics, I dreamt of becoming a librarian."
"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."