"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."
"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."
"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."
"But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence."
"One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries."
"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."