"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."
"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."
"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."
"Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read."
"Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth."
"Digestion of words as well; I often read aloud to myself in my writing corner in the library, where no one can hear me, for the sake of better savouring the text, so as to make it all the more mine."