“It was ugly, but then ugly objects as a general rule are the bravest.”

“I knew books to be objects that loved to cluster and form disordered piles, but here books seemed robbed of their zany capacity to fall about, to conspire. In the library, books behaved themselves.”

“The Arcade, and now Peabody's, combined to tell me that there was life in objects, in books. It was all about having eyes to see the true meaning of things. As Pike proved daily, books held a kind of magic, an apparent as well as a hidden value.”

“The books housed in one's first adult bookshelf are the geological bed of who we wish to become”

“Books aren't lumps of paper, but minds on shelves.”

“...to be free is often to be lonely”

“nothing is ever what you imagine, is it?”