I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?

Wouldn't you like to have comrades?' But she would not like that. She wanted only to rest and to read her old, rain-swollen books, turning the pages carefully, so carefully.

A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.

I am a practical girl, and a life is only so long. It should be spent in as much peace and good eating and good reading as possible and no undue excitement. That is all I am after.

What is it, Master Calligrapher, that little girls do in the way that spiders weave?" sleeve asked primly.The Calligrapher coughed, for his room was very dusty, and there was dust even on his eyelashes, and said: "It is right and proper," he said, "for a girl to read as many books as there are bricks in this city, and then, when she is finished, to begin to write new ones which are made out of the old ones, as this city is made of those stones.

You poor girl, what sort of aged, unfriendly Libraries have you met in short life? A silent Library is a sad Library ... A Library should be full of exclamations! ... A Library should be full of now-just-a-minutes and that-can't-be-rights and scientifick folk running skelter to prove somebody wrong... A Library should not shush ; it should roar !

I will always be here, in my old chair by the door, waiting for you, whenever you are lonesome. Our little house will always look just the same as when we first blew the dust off the bookshelves, and the kettle will always be just about to boil. Sometimes I will be young, and sometimes I will be old, sometimes you will be young, and sometimes you will be old. But for as long as forever, I will keep a room for you. I swear by the sparkle in my eye and the spring in your step.

You can't blame a book for its story.

A story is a map of the world. A gloriously colored and wonderful map, the sort one often sees framed and hanging on the wall in a study full of plush chairs and stained-glass lamps: painstakingly lettered, researched down to the last pebble and participle, drawn with dash and flair, with cloud-goddesses in the corners and giant squid squirming up out of the sea...[T]here are more maps in the world than anyone can count. Every person draws a map that shows themselves at the center.