“Marco could not have known about the mystical effect of a full moon on cats and books left on their own in the library. Not until he saw the lines breathe, the words unveiled.”

“How happily, said Austerlitz, have I sat over a book in the deepening twilight until I could no longer make out the words and my mind began to wander, and how secure have I felt seated at the desk in my house in the dark night, just watching the tip of my pencil in the lamplight following its shadow, as if of its own accord and with perfect fidelity, while that shadow moved regularly from left to right, line by line, over the ruled paper.”

“About the library," he whispered. He took out the pencil stub from his pocket and poised it over the page."Will you write like Mr. Blake or like yourself?" I inquired.He wrote and whispered the words aloud as he did. "I am in the library. It smells like old stuff.""It smells familiar," I suggested. "It smells like words." Because his left side was to me, I couldn't easily take his hand to write."Books are boring," James said as he wrote."They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.He thought about this and then wrote with a smile, "I hate books.”

“What's the point of having a library full of books you've already read?”

“One day, when I own a house, I'll keep a library full of books. Books are different from other possessions-they're more like friends.”

“We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of themeaning of it all.”