LIBRARY QUOTES
quotations about libraries
Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
"Street Haunting: A London Adventure", Selected Essays
A library is never complete. That's the joy of it. We are always seeking one more book to add to our collection.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Fairyland Series
I've always had a finely tuned ear for a library's accumulations of echo and desire. Libraries are anything but hushed.
MARTHA COOLEY
The Archivist
God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid.
JOAN BAUER
Rules of the Road
No longer are encyclopedias and libraries the most ambitious ideas humans have for the collection and stewardship of knowledge. The expectation, increasingly, is that information ought not be collected in one place, but kept everywhere, so that it is accessible at all times.
ADRIENNE LAFRANCE
"The Human Fear of Total Knowledge", The Atlantic, June 3, 2016
A library is no longer defined only by the tangible materials it possesses. A book has the capacity for creating memories, but libraries also offer infinite potential for dreaming, growing, planning, discovering, and investigating.
BRADD BROWN
"Libraries of the future", Eastern Iowa Gazette, June 12, 2016
These libraries should be open to all -- except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Saturday Review, Oct. 29, 1960
The Web is cool, but the library is magic. Where else can the spirit of generations of writers stir your soul? So many writers talk about libraries setting them on their magical paths, it's almost a groaner. But we know it's true. Wander through the stacks and you can feel the dreams, the unique worlds bubbling within each volume. The magic enters you as if by osmosis. On the Web, you may feel clever, lucky and driven to download--but rarely inspired to dream and to write.
ARTHUR PLOTNIK
The Writer Magazine, Nov. 2003
In the library of the world men have hitherto been ranged according to the form, and the binding; the time is coming when they will take rank and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits.
CHAMFORT
attributed, Day's Collacon
It's funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed.
PAULA POUNDSTONE
attributed, Friends of Libraries
A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants.
DORIS LESSING
attributed, Grammar Girl's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know
Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit in selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts.
JO WALTON
Among Others
We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Guardian, Oct. 15, 2013
A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.
NORMAN COUSINS
attributed, ALA Bulletin
I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt,
If one be better with them or without--
Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,
Knows the high art of what and how to read.
JOHN GODFREY SAXE
The Library
If you want to write ... You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.
RAY BRADBURY
attributed, Words from the Wise
Libraries provide a quiet and tranquil environment. There can be no better place to get some peace and quiet from the potentially upsetting collapse of civilisation taking place on the other side of the door.
SALLY BITTINER
"5 reasons why a library is the best place to hide during a Zombie Apocalypse", OUPblog, May 14, 2016
Come, and take choice of all my library,
And so beguile thy sorrow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Titus Andronicus
There you have it, five reasons for heading straight to your local library in a zombie apocalypse. We assure you, with the abundance of entertainment and the tranquil setting, it'll feel just like a long holiday. The only potential caveat is this: given their dietary preferences, we need to hope that the zombies don't realise that libraries are where the biggest and best brains are found!
SALLY BITTINER
"5 reasons why a library is the best place to hide during a Zombie Apocalypse", OUPblog, May 14, 2016
Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers.
DIANA GABALDON
Outlander