Best 1113 quotes in «library quotes» category

I stubbed my toe just as someone dropped a book into the inside drop box. As I yelped and howled in pain, a child on the other side said, 'Mommy, I think we hurt the book!

It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.

I think there is nothing more completely beautiful and more beautifully complete than walls lined with well-arranged books.

It is better to buy than burrow books.

It is possible that librarians will be robots, controlled by Master Minds having mastery of a master computer at the Library of Congress. Or there will be no libraries and librarians, flesh-and-blood or otherwise. The onetime library patron will press a button and turn a dial on his TV, whereupon the requested book, in the desired language, will appear on the screen, the pages turning at the designated speed.

It is that kind of thinking that is the problem; that movies, video games and the Internet, devices that simply amuse the imagination are more interesting than what a library stocks.

It may be that I link every library to that first one - to my early childhood experience of drawing on the floor near my father's desk. A library is of course a real place, but it is also an unreal one. What happens there is mostly silent. I think I've always liked the whispering aspect of libraries, the hushing librarians and my feeling of solitude among many.

It's better to read in the library. Sitting at my favorite table by the window reading and listening to the sound of other folks turning pages makes me feel like I'm in a house full of company I don't have to talk to.

It's like a sealed, forgotten chamber in me; I shan't feel complete until I've discovered its entrance.' 'Sounds like a tomb. Aren't you afraid of what you'll find in there?' 'It's a library; only the stupid and the evil are afraid of those.

It’s remarkable that a device, which fits in your pocket, can hold thousands of books. But a room full of books is an entirely different kind of remarkable.

It’s only with mild surprise I find I don’t so much read anymore, but rather teeter, wonder, take flight, like Pascal, like Madeline, like Bemelmans, like Lamorisse, like my daughters. Like Robert. Like anyone who has ever started or finished a book, or a love affair, or confused the two, in sweet anticipation of the fall.

It was a high ceilinged room with tall, large-panes windows. Apart from the doorway was the desk where book had been checked out in days when books were still being checked out. He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet's intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.

It took a bit of popcorn and a library snack bar to make me realize that being a librarian was about more than just giving people information. It was about serving a community. And if the community is hungry for more than just knowledge, then maybe it’s about time to open a snack bar.

It was an epoch of her life, an hour never to be forgotten, this first coming into relation with a really noble library.

It was a well-aimed arrow. Had anyone even noticed she was no longer at the library? All the people she'd worked with, worked for? All the patrons she'd helped? Had she been so replaceable that her absence hadn't caused a single ripple? Hadn't she mattered at all?

It wasn't that time stopped in the library. It was as if it were captured, collected here, and in all libraries -- and not only my time, my life, but all human time as well. In the library, time is dammed up--not just stopped but saved.

It was immediately clear that the book had been undisturbed for a very long time, perhaps even since it had been laid to rest. The librarian fetched a checked duster, and wiped away the dust, a black, thick, tenacious Victorian dust, a dust composed of smoke and fog particles accumulated before the Clean Air acts.

It was impeccably clean, and smelled like an old library might smell if someone was eating a Subway sandwich in it. Because someone was eating a Subway sandwich in it.

It was in Durmond that I made the wonderful discovery of interlibrary loan, the greatest invention since the light bulb. […] All the libraries were linked together, so no matter where I moved, as long as I had a library card I would be part of a web as powerful and beautiful as the one in Charlotte’s Web. Just as Charlotte the spider wrote messages in her web that transformed Wilbur the ordinary pig into “some pig,” this web would transform me. I would eventually collect nearly fifty different library cards. I was snagged forever in the wonderful web of the public library system.

I’ve often felt that my library explained who I was, gave me a shifting self that transformed itself constantly throughout the years.

I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.

I've never thought much of strictly organised and methodical study. You can't arrange a library in alphabetical order until you've collected one.

I wanted more time with the books. I wanted to spend the day in a quiet corner, sitting against a window, lost in words and worlds I had never been given access to.

I was under the librarians' protection. Civil servants and servants of civility, they had my back. They would be whatever they needed to be that day: information professionals, teachers, police, community organizers, computer technicians, historians, confidantes, clerks, social workers, storytellers, or, in this case, guardians of my peace.

I want to know how the hell you managed to locate that hideout using the damn public library.

I was born, and then I was quietly resentful of that fact for a few years...but then I went to a library and it was okay.

Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book.

I will tell everyone I know to come [to the library]. This place saves lives.

I wish to continue reading.

Maybe there’s a book in here that will tell me what to do when all the smart choices feel wrong.

Ms Rainn, when was the last time you visited a library for the books and not the free Internet it offers?

Mr. O'Donnell was at the library counter, performing the sort of grim rituals librarians perform with index cards and stumpy pencils and those rubber stamps with columns of rotating numbers. "Ms. Auerbach! What will it be today? Camus? Cervantes?" "Actually I'm looking for a book of poetry by Emily Dickinson" He paused somberly, toying with the twirled tip of his mustache. No matter how seriously librarians are engaged in their work, they are always glad to be interrupted when the theme is books. It makes no difference to them how simple the search is or how behind on time either of you might be running - they consider all queries scrupulously. They love to have their knowledge tested. They lie in wait, they will not be rushed.

Montrose decided then and there that a full library, one made of old-fashioned paper books with bindings, the kind that cannot be electronically re-edited by anonymous lines of hidden code, was just as much a necessity for a free man as a shooting iron or a printing press.

Nik loved the library, but it went beyond the books; he enjoyed the solitude. In the library, nobody expected him to be strong, or brave, or daring. No need for wrestling to prove he was tougher, no showing teeth to keep other kids from thinking they could get the better of him.

My father always says, to know a man, you must visit his library, for the contours of his mind have been shaped by the words on his bookshelf

Nick chided a censor, who wished some books gone, and suggested she scan Fahrenheit 451. For the book-budget cutters, Old Claus had no plan, cause if they could read, they just read Ayn Rand.

... my heart skips a beat. Seriously, like a CD from the public library, it goes ZZebbTTT and skips.

My wish is to create a huge library of books.

No one stepping for the first time into a room made of books can know instinctively how to behave, what is expected, what is promised, what is allowed. One may be overcome by horror--at the cluster or the vastness, the stillness, the mocking reminder of everything one doesn't know, the surveillance--and some of that overwhelming feeling may cling on, even after the rituals and conventions are learned, the geography mapped, and the natives found friendly.

Nor did I forget what is the natural pleasure of every man who has been a reader;… filling the shelves of a tolerably large library.

Now look," snapped the Dean, "we've searched everywhere for a decent library on this island. There simply isn't one! It's ridiculous. How is anyone supposed to get anything done?

Note found in the patron suggestion box: "You have SIGNS up near the computers that say BE QUIET, but people don't be quiet. They laugh out loud and talk out loud. Libraries used to be quiet, but they aren't anymore because you let all the assholes in!!!!!

...Not many people care much about the past. We don’t get folks your age in here. It’s either the elderly, or parents come in with their hollering little devil kids. Feel more like a social worker than a librarian most days. But that’s life, ain’t it?” “I guess so.” “Sure it is. You’ll find out soon enough,” she said. “It don’t go the way you think it should, but it goes alright. I’ll be up front if you need anything.

now, never mind the boy who came out of that reading room a new man, safe in the hope of what was to come in the summers of his life.

Now take my hand and hold it tight. I will not fail you here tonight, For failing you, I fail myself And place my soul upon a shelf In Hell's library without light. I will not fail you here tonight.

No. You can't leave a library. Without a book.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. — Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library

Od pierwszego Adama, który ujrzał noc, I dzień, i kształt swojej dłoni, Ludzie snuli opowieści i utrwalali W kamieniu, w metalu czy na pergaminie To wszystko, co zawiera ziemia czy co tworzy sen. Oto ich dzieło: Biblioteka. Powiadają, że liczba jej woluminów Przekracza liczbę ciał niebieskich Czy ziaren piasku na pustyni. Człowiek, Co chce ją wyczerpać, Traci rozum i zuchwałe oczy. Zawarta jest tu rozległa pamięć wieków Minionych, miecze i bohaterowie, Lakoniczne symbole algebry, Wiedza, co sonduje planety Rządzące przeznaczeniem, Moce ziół i talizmanów ze słoniowej kości, Wiersz, w którym trwa pieszczota, Nauka, co rozszyfrowuje samotny Labirynt Boga - teologia, Alchemia, która w błocie szuka złota, I formy wyobrażeń bałwochwalcy. Niewierni twierdzą, że gdyby spłonęła, Spłonęłaby historia. Lecz się mylą. Te nieskończone księgi zostały spłodzone Przez ludzką bezsenność. Jeśliby z nich wszystkich Nie ocalała ani jedna, bezsenność Spłodzi na nowo każdy wers i każdą kartę, Wszystkie prace i każdą miłość Heraklesa, Każdą lekcję każdego manuskryptu. Teraz, w pierwszym stuleciu Hidżry, Ja, ów Omar, co ujarzmił Persów I narzuca Islam kuli ziemskiej, Rozkazuję żołnierzom, by zniszczyli ogniem Rozległą Bibliotekę, Co nie zginie. Niech będzie pochwalony Bóg, który nie śpi, i Muhammad, Prorok.

One of the reasons I decided to enter this profession," one of the Riot Librarrrians wrote, "was because I'm in love with information, and the library remains one of the few spaces in our lives where information is not a commodity.... There's a subversive element to librarianship that I adore.

Oh please tell me we're not doing the Poirot thing again — the suspects in the library with the candlestick or whatever'. Max looked at him [DCI Cotton]. 'Fruitcake in this case. And what would you prefer? A car chase? It’s the most efficient way to flush out a killer, as Dame Agatha Christie well knew.