"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Unpacking books is a revelatory activity."
"One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries."