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

“The supernatural worldview is causing a great number of otherwise intelligent people to cling to a collection of atavistic concepts that have not, and never will serve humanity in any ultimately beneficial way. Any benefits that spirituality ostensibly provides to its adherents, can be found equally in the worldview of philosophy and ethics, communities of other kinds, and so on. It's a myth that the only morality, hope, purpose and comfort to be found, resides only in the supernatural.”

“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.”

“There was something else, she often told herself, that spring brought teachers. A sort of sadness--other people felt something like it, she supposed, at the end of the calendar year--a sadness that came from realizing that they hadn't kept the resolutions they had made in September. Resolutions to read more, to go to more concerts and plays, to get better acquainted in the community. They meant to do these things, and they usually hadn't, and they felt in the spring that they probably never would.”

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.”

“To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare to fail... failure is his world and the shrink from it desertion”