“sometimes, what i see is a library in a rural community. all the tall shelves in the big open room. and the pencilsin a cup at circulation, gnawed on by the entire population.the books have lived here all along, belongingfor weeks at a time to one or another in the brief sequenceof family names, speaking (at night mostly) to a face,a pair of eyes. the most remarkable lies.”

“I lived in the royal library, among all the books.""You resided in a... library?""There were suites inside and great balconies that overlooked the city, but yes. I was most content among those shelves, so one night, I simply never left.”

“He went through rooms he named as he discovered them, and which he hardly had time to appreciate before he'd flung open a door at the far end and plunged through. . . . and in the Library of All the Same Book he actually stopped to examine a few of the volumes, all titled Various, that lined the shelves.”

“A great library doesn't have to be big or beautiful. It doesn't have to have the best facilities or the most efficient staff or the most users. A great library provides. It is enmeshed in the life of a community in a way that makes it indispensable. A great library is one nobody notices because it is always there, and always has what people need.”

“Come indoors then, and open the books on your library shelves. For you have a library and a good one. A working library, a living library; a library where nothing is chained down and nothing is locked up; a library where the songs of the singers rise naturally from the lives of the livers.”

“Most of the time one night blends into the next and weeks blend into weeks and months into other months. And sooner or later we all die. But at the beginning of the night anything’s possible.”