"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."
"Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers."
"Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted."
"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."
"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."