“In books I mee the dead as if they were alive,in books I see what is yet to come...All things decay and pass with time...all fame would fall victim to oblivionif God had not given mortal men the book to aid them.”

“In books I meet the dead as if they were alive,in books I see what is yet to come...All things decay and pass with time...all fame would fall victim to oblivionif God had not given mortal men the book to aid them.”

“In books I meet the dead as if they were alivein books I see what is yet to come...All things decay and pass in time...All fame would fall into oblivionif God had not given mortal men the book to aid them”

“In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace.All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.”

“What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past times. Books, it is true, are silent as you see them on their shelves; but, silent as they are, when I enter a library I feel as if almost the dead were present, and I know if I put questions to these books they will answer me with all the faithfulness and fulness which has been left in them by the great men who have left the books with us.”

“It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they come from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them -- with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them ...”