“During the day, the library is a realm of order.”

“…Because every ruler celebrated his conquests by setting torch to the nearest library. Did not Julius Caesar incinerate the scrolls in the great library at Alexandria during his campaign against the republicans in Africa? Or General Stilicho, leader of the Vandals, order the burning of the Sybillene prophecies in Rome?”

“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.”

“If the library in the morning suggests an echo of the severe and reasonable wishful order of the world, the library at night seems to rejoice in the world's essential, joyful muddle. ”

“The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a good library.”

“The weight of absence is as much a feature of any library as the constriction of order and space.”