“There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.”

“There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.”

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”

“There’s no better way to get to know a city than to walk its streets. A place will reveal its soul through its sights, sounds and smells, and eventually, it’ll teach you its rhythm.”

“Today the sight that discourages book people most is to walk into a public library and see computers where books used to be. In many cases not even the librarians want books to be there. What consumers want now is information, and information increasingly comes from computers. That is a preference I can’t grasp, much less share, though I’m well aware that computers have many valid uses. They save lives, and they make research in most cases a thing that’s almost instantaneous. They do many good things.But they don’t really do what books do, and why should they usurp the chief function of a public library, which is to provide readers access to books? Books can accommodate the proximity of computers but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Computers now literally drive out books from the place that should, by definition, be books’ own home: the library.”

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”