“Her library is a meeting place for all who love books. They discuss matters of the world and matters of the spirit.”

“A good library is a place, a palace where the lofty spirits of all nations and generations meet.”

“I feel, holding books, accommodating their weight and breathing their dust, an abiding love. I trust them, in a way that I can't trust my computer, though I couldn't do without it. Books are matter. My books matter. What would I have done through these years without the library and all its lovely books?”

“Why, the club was just the quietest place in the world, a place where a woman could run in to brush her hair and wash her hands, and change her library book, and have a cup of tea.”

“It didn't matter if i was the kind of girl who had sex, or the kind of girl who had her portrait on on a wall in the library, or the kind of girl who who got into the best college, or the kind of girl who didn't tell her parents everything, or the kind of girl who teachers loved. I just needed to be okay with all the kinds of girl I was.”

“One never discusses art save with people who are already in agreement, and then it is a matter of nuances.”