“To prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.”

“To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain.”

“Без книгите, ние бяхме останали диваци.”

“Sometimes a majority simply means that all the fools are on the same side.”

“The novels, travel books and poems I read had a particular smell. The smell of cellars. An almost spicy smell, a mixture of dust and grease. Verdigris. Books today don't have a smell. They don't even smell of print.”

“even if our entire audiovisual legacy were to be lost in a power cut, we would still be able to read books in the light from the sun, or in the evening by a candlelight.”

“Our taste for books came from Antonin, an old second-hand bookseller, an anarchist, whose shop was on Cours Julien. We'd cut classes to go see him. He'd tell us stories of adventures and pirates. The Caribbean. The Red Sea. The South Seas... Sometimes he'd stop, grab a book, and read us a passage. As if to prove that what he was telling us was true. Then he'd give it to us as a present. ”