If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are not, and cannot be.
Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers.
I know my time will come soon enough, but I will not dwell on it. What is the purpose? We might as well dwell on the work of our teeth or on the mechanics of our walk. It is there, it will always be t...
Life happened because I turned the pages.
The starting point is a question.
I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days.
From fire, water, the passage of time, neglectful readers, and the hand of the censor, each of my books has escaped to tell me its story.
The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned.
Ordered by subject, by importance, ordered according to whether the book was penned by God or by one of God’s creatures, ordered alphabetically or by numbers or by the language in which the text is wr...
I wanted to live among books.
Ancient Egypt 1300BCBe a scribe! Engrave this in your heartSo that your name might live on like theirs!The scroll is better than the carved stone.A man has died: his corpse is dust,And his people have...
In the light, we read the inventions of others; in the darkness we invent our own stories.
Hinter dem westlichen Konzept einer Idealstadt verbirgt sich die Idee der Privilegierung. Moreau hätte ihm ohne Zweifel zugestimmt.
إن الحكام الديكتاتوريين يخافون الكتب أكثر من أي إختراع آخر على الإطلاق
Geschichten sind unser Gedächtnis, Bibliotheken die Lagerstätten für dieses Gedächtnis und Lesen das Handwerk, mit dem wir dieses Gedächtnis neu erschaffen können, indem wir es rezitieren und glossier...
At night, here in the library, the ghosts have voices.
The Bush administration may, in future years, be remembered 'for bringing peace to the Middle East' (as Condoleezza Rice has pronounced). History may be the mother of truth, but it can also give birth...
Reality deals in specifics under the guise of generalities. Literature does the contrary...
If the library in the morning suggests an echo of the severe and reasonable wishful order of the world, the library at night seems to rejoice in the world's essential, joyful muddle.
I don't remember ever feeling lonely; in fact, on the rare occasions when I met other children I found their games and their talk far less interesting than the adventures and dialogues I read in my bo...
