#libraries

"Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for the better."

"A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert."

"I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows."

"What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it feels about education."

"I grew up in libraries, and I hope I've learned never to take them for granted. A thriving library is the heart of its community, providing access to information and educational opportunities, bringing people together, leveling the playing field, and archiving our history."

"anyone who’s worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm."

"Shelving books incorrectly is as good as stealing them. It's almost worse."

"You are a total stranger and you want to take my library book."

"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."

"Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually."

"Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted."

"I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them."[Letter to Herbert Putnam; in: Waters, Edward N.: Herbert Putnam: the tallest little man in the world; Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 33:2 (April 1976), p. 171]"

"To build up a library is to create a life. It's never just a random collection of books."

"A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them."

"If your library is not "unsafe,"it probably isn't doing its job."

"An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."

"I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."

"There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.Someone had stolen a book."

"Reading is important.Books are important.Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.)"

"In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them."