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

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

“Ordered by subject, by importance, ordered according to whether the book was penned by God or by one of God’s creatures, ordered alphabetically or by numbers or by the language in which the text is written, every library translates the chaos of discovery and creation into a structured system of hierarchies or a rampage of free associations.”

“Entering a library, I am always stuck by the way in which a certain vision of the world is imposed upon the reader through its categories and its order.”

“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.”

“Libraries are not, never will be, used by everyone.”