476 Quotes About Libraries

A recurring theme in the book is instinct versus articulation. Although teen services people may know and understand issues on an instinctive level, they must be prepared to articulate these ideas in the face of threats to teen services.

Late fees are the enemy of early literacy because instead of promoting responsible behavior, they suppress library visits for some of the people who need the institution the most. And of course these fees don't promote children being more responsible, but only reveal to children how irresponsible, ignorant, or unaware their own parents are. -- Amy Dickinson

Trithemius' concern for conservation was rare, indeed, and is a lesson to modern library managers who discard printed volumes, believing that e-books are the only way of the future.

Libraries are about Freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.

She just wanted - had always wanted - a good book to read. Being chased by hellhounds and blowing things up were comparatively unimportant parts of the job. Getting the books - now, that was what *really* mattered to her.

The curtains were blood-red and drawn. This was not an office. It was a small library, two storeys high, with thin ladders and impractical balconies and an expansive ceiling featuring a gaggle of naked Greeks. It was the sort of library you'd marry a man for.

I feel that the care of libraries and the use of books, and the knowledge of books, is a tremendously vital thing, and that we who deal with books and who love books have a great opportunity to bring about something in this country which is more vital here than anywhere else, because we have the chance to make a democracy that will be a real democracy.

There is a value to books—unhackable, paper books—that measures far beyond mere ink and paper.

Destiny smells of dust and the libraries of the night.