“It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.”

“What ticks in the clock, beats here with strong strokes of the hammer. It is Bloodless, who drank life from human thought and thereby got limbs of metals, stone and wood; it is Bloodless, who by human thought gained strength, which man himself does not physically possess. Bloodless reigns in Motala, and through the large foundries and factories he extends his hard limbs, whose joints and parts consist of wheel within wheel, chains, bars, and thick iron wires.”

“Life without a Kindle is like life without a library nearby.”

“I lie here sleeping, and these people are the fragments of my bloodless dreaming.”

“It seemed to him that anyone with any trouble at all eventually found his way to a city library, and the really troubled ones became regulars.”

“A man's library is a sort of harem.”