“Library stacks from this perspective are not a repository; they are a crowd.”

“Words: repositories for singular realities which they then transform into memories in an anthology, magicians that change the face of reality by adorning it with the right to become memorable, to be placed in a library of memories.”

“Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines -- it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.”

“Reading is important.Books are important.Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.)”

“In a great library, you get into society in the widest sense. . . . From that great crowd you can choose what companions you please, for in these silent gatherings . . . the highest is at the service of the lowest with a grand humility. In a library you become a true citizen of the world.”

“In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense.”