In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long. - Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night

"Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does not contribute to the common good."

"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."

"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."

"If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity."