“The moths were fluttering all over the sign at the desk that read DASHIELL QWERTY, SUB-LIBRARIAN. He was younger than I think of librarians as being, younger than the father of anyone I knew, and he had the hairstyle one gets if one is attacked by a scissors-carrying maniac and lives to tell the tale.”

“The secret of a good librarian is that he never reads anything more of the literature in his charge than the title and the table of contents. Anyone who lets himself go and starts reading a book is lost as a librarian...He's bound to lose perspective.”

“I was always younger than anyone around me. One day it began to change.”

“Asleep, he looked a lot younger than going-on-seventeen, but I had noticed that Johnny looked younger when he was asleep too, so I figured everyone did. Maybe people are younger when they are asleep.”

“I should be a success and I'm not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I'm still a nobody. When am I going to not be a nobody?”

“I think you’re more an archivist than a librarian,” he said.He told me that archivists and librarians were opposite personas. True librarians are unsentimental. They’re pragmatic, concerned with the newest, cleanest, most popular books. Archivists, on the other hand, are only peripherally interested in what other people like, and much prefer the rare to the useful.”They like everything,” he said, “gum wrappers as much as books.” He said this with a hint of disdain.”Librarians like throwing away garbage to make space, but archivists,” he said, “they’re too crazy to throw anything out.””You’re right,” I said. ”I’m more of an archivist.””And I’m more of a librarian,” he said.”Can we still be friends?”