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c8d9133 I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library. library reading Jane Austen
c2ab59f "Have you really read all those books in your room?" Alaska laughing- "Oh God no. I've maybe read a third of 'em. But I'm going to read them all. I call it my Life's Library. Every summer since I was little, I've gone to garage sales and bought all the books that looked interesting. So I always have something to read." library reading John Green
7eeb513 "[D]on't ever apologise to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. your library). Don't apologise to libraries library reading Neil Gaiman
c44e0ed Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. library books inspirational Maya Angelou
1a776b7 "Harry -- I think I've just understood something! I've got to go to the library!" And she sprinted away, up the stairs. " does she understand?" said Harry distractedly, still looking around, trying to tell where the voice had come from. "Loads more than I do," said Ron, shaking his head. "But why's she got to go to the library?" "Because that's what Hermione does," said Ron, shrugging. "When in doubt, go to the library." library humor J.K. Rowling
2ff93af It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home. library home Elizabeth Kostova
3147186 When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf. library emotions Haruki Murakami
62b4f04 Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly. library writing bible science bitter childish-beliefs guides invade uneducated unimaginative unthinking guide childish leader leaders imagine ignore home resentment ignorance shame thought the-bible school Isaac Asimov
42e59a1 Me, poor man, my library Was dukedom large enough. words library literature reading William Shakespeare
c7a1b7f I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book. library Barbara Kingsolver
60ad2ea In the library I felt better, words you could trust and look at till you understood them, they couldn't change half way through a sentence like people, so it was easier to spot a lie. words lies library reading people Jeanette Winterson
5a2c917 I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself. library Isaac Asimov
1ed9cd2 For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his last punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for ever. , from the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona, Spain library malediction Cornelia Funke
ad9ea53 Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for the better. libraries library learning inspirational Sidney Sheldon
dfa1222 I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple. words library literature reading Jean-Paul Sartre
7d5beb0 "But we're a university! We to have a library!" said Ridcully. "It adds . What sort of people would we be if we didn't go into the library?" "Students," said Senior Wrangler morosely." library students university school Terry Pratchett
4053ef3 The old man was peering intently at the shelves. 'I'll have to admit that he's a very competent scholar.' Isn't he just a librarian?' Garion asked, 'somebody who looks after books?' That's where all the rest of scholarship starts, Garion. All the books in the world won't help you if they're just piled up in a heap. libraries library scholarship scholar librarians school David Eddings
21f880d His library was a fine dark place bricked with books, so anything could happen there and always did. All you had to do was pull a book from the shelf and open it and suddenly the darkness was not so dark anymore. words library Ray Bradbury
125915e In my fool hardy youth, when my friends were dreaming of heroic deeds in the realms of engineering and law, finance and national politics, I dreamt of becoming a librarian. libraries library librarian Alberto Manguel
50cf732 They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.' Our learned men have cited this reasoning as the height of absurdity. However, suppose Gregory the Great was there instead of Omar and the Gospel instead of the Koran. The library would still have been burned, and that might well have been the finest moment in the life of this illustrious pontiff. library alexandria caliph caliph-omar gregory-the-great koran library-of-alexandria pontiff quran intolerance science-vs-religion gospel islam Jean-Jacques Rousseau
f2c4975 Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers. library Diana Gabaldon
71a69b2 The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions-there we have none. words library literature reading freedom Virginia Woolf
fb8a68e 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. library readers Anne Fadiman
2066d3f The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned. library Alberto Manguel
bf842b6 I like to imagine that, on the day after my last, my library and I will crumble together, so that even when I am no more I'll still be with my books. library death Alberto Manguel
331ffaa The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass. library reading feelings books smell mood read experience Betty Smith
fab69ac 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. library reflection readers Alberto Manguel
083ff62 -Mikhail?...Try making suggestions next time, or just plain asking. You go do whatever it is you're doing, and I'll go search you extensive library for a book on manners. -You will not find it. -Why am I not surprised? library suggest order manners Christine Feehan
4e7b83f At night, here in the library, the ghosts have voices. library Alberto Manguel
d3d7db6 Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market alow you to put there. library reading books Nassim Nicholas Taleb
6b75059 But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence. library Alberto Manguel
b6d29ba In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long. library Alberto Manguel
2cc847e A library could show you everything if you knew where to look. library reading Pat Conroy
79313b3 "Are you missing the library again?" Seth asked, startling her as he walked into the room. Kendra turned to face her brother. "You caught me," she congratulated him. "I'm reading." "I bet the librarians back home are panicking. Summer vacation, and no Kendra Sorenson to keep them in business. Have they been sending you letters?" "Might not hurt you to pick up a book, just as an experiment." Whatever. I looked up the definition for 'nerd' in the dictionary. Know what it said?" "I bet you'll tell me." " 'If you're reading this, you are one.' " You're a riot." Kendra turned back to the journal, flipping to a random page. Seth took a seat on his bed across from her. "Kendra, seriously, I can sort of see reading a cool book for fun, but dusty old journals? Really? Has anybody told you there are magical creatures out there?" He pointed out the window. "Has anybody told you some of those creatures can eat you?" Kendra responded. "I'm not reading these just for fun. They have good info." "like what? Patton and Lena smooching?" Kendra rolled her eyes. "I'm not telling. You'll end up in a tar pit." "There's a tar pit?" he said, perking up. "Where?" library reading nerd curiosity Brandon Mull
efbf7c7 I took to the Bodleian library as to a lover and ... would sit long hours in Bodley's arms to emerge, blinking and dazed with the smell and feel of all those books. library books Laurie R. King
6b7b5dc Digestion of words as well; I often read aloud to myself in my writing corner in the library, where no one can hear me, for the sake of better savouring the text, so as to make it all the more mine. words library reading text read Alberto Manguel
0ba5009 We'll always need printed books that don't mutate the way digital books do; we'll always need places to display books, auditoriums for book talks, circles for story time; we'll always need brick-and-mortar libraries. libraries library Marilyn Johnson
8ce7d9e It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed. library books banning book-burning censorship Alberto Manguel
95c5f34 Steadily, the room shrank, till the book thief could touch the shelves within a few small steps. She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book. It sounded like an instrument, or the notes of running feet. She used both hands. She raced them. One shelf against the other. And she laughed. Her voice was sprawled out, high in her throat, and when she eventually stopped and stood in the middle of the room, she spent many minutes looking from the shelves to her fingers and back again. How many books had she touched? How many had she felt? She walked over and did it again, this time much slower, with her hand facing forward, allowing the dough of her palm to feel the small hurdle of each book. It felt like magic, like beauty, as bright lines of light shone down from a chandelier. Several times, she almost pulled a title from its place but didn't dare disturb them. They were too perfect. library Markus Zusak
1077fa7 Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's what part of it means to be alive. But inside our heads -- at least that's where I imagine it -- there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let fresh air in, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live for ever in your own private library. library loss life little-room lost-opportunity Haruki Murakami
d98a69b Libraries, whether my own or shared with a greater reading public, have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I've been seduced by their labyrinthine logic, which suggests that reason (if not art) rules over a cacophonous arrangement of books. library Alberto Manguel
7b473b8 "Now ," snapped the Dean, "we've searched for a decent library on this island. There simply isn't one! It's ridiculous. How is anyone supposed to get anything done?" library Terry Pratchett
c1996fe In the dark, with the windows lit and the rows of books glittering, the library is a closed space, a universe of self-serving rules that pretend to replace or translate those of the shapeless universe beyond. library Alberto Manguel
315ad80 Several times he had to flatten himself against the shelves as a thesaurus thundered by. He waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, grazing on the contents of the choicer books and leaving behind them piles of small slim volumes of literary criticism. library literary-criticism discworld Terry Pratchett
93262db Touching him, kissing him, was like having a fever all over again. I was on fire. My body burned. The world burned. Sparks flew. Against his mouth, I moaned. There was a POP! and CRACK! The smell of burned plastic filled the cubicle. We pulled apart, breathing heavily. Over his shoulder I saw thin strips of smoke wafting from the top of the ancient monitor. Good God, was this going to happen every time we kissed? library katy Jennifer L. Armentrout
5ad7b5c "Our library isn't very extensive," said Anne, "but every book in it is a friend. We've picked our books up through the years, here and there, never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged to the race of Joseph." library reading L.M. Montgomery
2ef7ded 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. libraries library Marilyn Johnson
982e615 Words have power, you understand? It is in the nature of our universe. Our library itself distorts time and space on quite a grand scale. Well, when the Post Office started accumulating letters, it was storing words. In fact, what was being created was what we call a 'gevaisa', a tomb of living words. words library gevaisa Terry Pratchett
d620aec A library is an ever-growing entity; it multiples seemingly unaided, it reproduces itself by purchase, theft, borrowings, gifts, by suggesting gaps through association, by demanding completion of sorts. library Alberto Manguel
d54cdd9 I grew up in a utopia, I did. California when I was a child was a child's paradise, I was healthy, well fed, well clothed, well housed. I went to school and there were libraries with all the world in them and after school I played in orange groves and in Little League and in the band and down at the beach and every day was an adventure. . . . I grew up in utopia. libraries library music groves little-league orange beach california utopia Kim Stanley Robinson
68727ff It had been a good day, all things considered. I had managed rather well on my own. I opened Grandfather's Bible. This is what it would be like when I had my own shop, or when I traveled abroad. I would always read before sleeping. One day, I'd be so rich I would have a library full of novel to choose from. But I would always end the evening with a Bible passage. library reading religious read Laurie Halse Anderson
7b1ed9c 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. library world order Alberto Manguel
6395f81 Entering a library, I am always stuck by the way in which a certain vision of the world is imposed upon the reader through its categories and its order. library Alberto Manguel
594787d they should let some people into the library by prescription only library reading Chuck Palahniuk
1839045 every human being who is born into this universe is like a child who has been given a key to an infinite Library, written in cyphers that are more or less obscure, arranged by a scheme--of which we can at first know nothing, other than that there does appear to be some scheme. library scheme Neal Stephenson
12c31ba 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. libraries library books Alberto Manguel
c543160 He wanted to say: how could you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you could do with the peasents was to leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting for those who can't, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open. library reading writing ricewind Terry Pratchett
b1731f9 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. library jobs librarian christmas David Davis
eeaa7a3 I put the books I was returning on the appropriate desk, and I began looking at the shelves of new arrivals. Most of them were some permutation on self-help. Going by how popular these books were and how often they were checked out, everyone in Bon Temps should have become perfect by now. library humor Charlaine Harris
6344e30 I can hear the library humming in the night, a choir of authors murmuring inside their books along the unlit, alphabetical shelves, Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son, each one stitched into his own private coat, together forming a low, gigantic chord of language. words library literature reading poetry Billy Collins
f0cfb99 "PAPER TOWERS The library was on the second floor of the House, not far from my room. It had two floors--the first held the majority of the books and a balcony wrapped in a wrought-iron railing held another set. It was a cavalcade of tomes, all in immaculate rows, and with study carrels and tables thrown in for good measure. It was my home away from home(away from home. I walked inside and paused for a moment to breathe in the scent of paper and dust--the perfumes of knowledge. The library was empty of patrons as far as I could tell, but I could hear the rhythmic squeal of a library cart somewhere in the rows. I followed them down until I found the dark-haired vampire shelving books with mechanical precision. I knew him only as "the librarian." He was a fount of information, and he had a penchant for leaving books outside my door." library deep neill merit drink Chloe Neill
08275af The world encyclopedia, the universal library, exists, and it is the world itself. library world Alberto Manguel
24e4851 Book should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree? library reading brisingr christopher-paolini Christopher Paolini
771356a Some people write letters, in the library. library Margaret Atwood
7381d48 "Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. -- Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library" -- creating library writing books writers Phillip Lopate
9512b82 Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. I'll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Sunday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books...books..books. library passion life flowers Betty Smith
04cc68b Sitting in the brightly lit library, surrounded by books, in total silence, that was ma personal zenith. solitude library literature reading books bookish irvine-welsh skagboys zenith heroine reading-books read introversion introvert reader Irvine Welsh
16a6bf2 The weight of absence is as much a feature of any library as the constriction of order and space. library Alberto Manguel
672e66e We were all serious readers, sitting on wooden chairs at rows of lecterns, turning the pages, united in mutual love of isolation. library reading readers Michael Moorcock
a9887f4 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. metaphor library books death apocalypse decay empty zombies dead Richard Matheson
487d404 Well, when it became obvious that magic was going to wreck the computer networks, people tried to preserve portions of the Internet. They took snapshots of their servers and sent the data to a central database at the Library of Congress. The project became known as the Library of Alexandria, because in ancient times Alexandria's library was said to contain all the human knowledge, before some jackass burned it to the ground. library knowledge Ilona Andrews
f503566 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. library imagination books-reading Liam Callanan
ab28c0d "Everything I am is based on this ugly building on its lonely lawn--lit up during winter darkness; open in the slashing rain--which allowed a girl so poor she didn't even own a purse to come in twice a day and experience actual magic: traveling through time, making contact with the dead--Dorothy Parker, Stella Gibbons, Charlotte Bronte, Spike Milligan. A library in the middle of a community is a cross be-tween an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen, instead. A human with a brain and a heart and a desire to be uplifted, rather than a customer with a credit card and an inchoate "need" for "stuff." A mall--the shops--are places where your money makes the wealthy wealthier. But a library is where the wealthy's taxes pay for you to become a little more extraordinary, instead. A satisfying reversal. A balancing of the power." library library-funding Caitlin Moran
3940b17 Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries -old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors. libraries library books dialogues-between-books parchment speaking dialogue Umberto Eco
abb6252 "Tell me, Jeeves," I said. "Suppose you were in a shop taking out of the lending library and a clergyman's daughter came in and without so much as a preliminary 'Hullo, there' said to you, 'Has he brought it yet?' what interpretations would you place on those words?" He pondered, this way and that dividing the swift mind, as I have heard him put it. "'Has he brought it yet,' sir?" "Just that." "I should reach the conclusion that the lady was expecting a male acquaintance to have arrived or to be arriving shortly bearing some unidentified object." -- library jeeves-and-wooster jeeves questions P.G. Wodehouse
5540892 My library was to me an utterly private space that both enclosed and mirrored me. library reading Alberto Manguel
e7776f0 "Her latest client is Professor Desmond Curnin, a university professor who teaches library sciences to large groups of students. He's quick to pay on-time, quick to never fall behind. He's a brown-haired man with an unkempt beard and thick-framed hipster glasses. He slides a leather briefcase stuffed with dollar bills into the open window of Geraldine's car. "Your fly's unzipped," Geraldine points out, disgusted. "Who gave you a license to sell hot dogs, buddy?" money library briefcase buddy cash glasses hipster hot-dog leather lewd professor unzip window fly car disgust Rebecca McNutt
6b97751 ...I, like Borges, think of heaven as something very like a library library heaven Ursula K. Le Guin
32d97ef "When he was seventy-four years old the Cretan novelist Nikos Kazantzakis began a book. He called it Report to Greco... Kazantzakis thought of himself as a soldier reporting to his commanding officer on a mortal mission--his life. ... Well, there is only one Report to Greco, but no true book... was ever anything else than a report. ... A true book is a report upon the mystery of existence... it speaks of the world, of our life in the world. Everything we have in the books on which our libraries are founded--Euclid's figures, Leonardo's notes, Newton's explanations, Cervantes' myth, Sappho's broken songs, the vast surge of Homer--everything is a report of one kind or another and the sum of all of them together is our little knowledge of our world and of ourselves. Call a book Das Kapital or The Voyage of the Beagle or Theory of Relativity or Alice in Wonderland or Moby-Dick, it is still what Kazantzakis called his book--it is still a "report" upon the "mystery of things." But if this is what a book is... then a library is an extraordinary thing. ... libraries library Archibald MacLeish
48e1de8 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. library books dust pollution victorian library-books london librarians A.S. Byatt
391b897 Isabel is looking at several collections of research journals. 'She would understand the issues if she chose to open one of the volumes, but she knew that there were conversations within which she would never have the time to participate in. And that, of course, was the problem with any large collection of books, whether in a library or a bookshop: one might feel intimidated by the fact that there was simply too many to read and not know where to start. library Alexander McCall Smith
10dcaa2 Though I loved the wired world, the new-wave librarians, the avatars and activists, I turned into a dinosaur in that library. I couldn't help it; I was an old-fashioned writer who loved the ancient books summoned via pneumatic tubes, the archives, the quiet. I had found something rare there: an inexhaustible wonder. library wonder Marilyn Johnson
7d7df70 In the meantime, there is not an hour to lose. I am about to visit the public library. library travel reading professor-hardwigg public-library jules-verne hour hurry Jules Verne
1596ff3 Keynes was a voracious reader. He had what he called 'one of the best of all gifts - the eye which can pick up the print effortlessly'. If one was to be a good reader, that is to read as easily as one breathed, practice was needed. 'I read the newspapers because they're mostly trash,' he said in 1936. 'Newspapers are good practice in learning how to skip; and, if he is not to lose his time, every serious reader must have this art.' Travelling by train from New York to Washington in 1943, Keynes awed his fellow passengers by the speed with which he devoured newspapers and periodicals as well as discussing modern art, the desolate American landscape and the absence of birds compared with English countryside.54 'As a general rule,' Keynes propounded as an undergraduate, 'I hate books that end badly; I always want the characters to be happy.' Thirty years later he deplored contemporary novels as 'heavy-going', with 'such misunderstood, mishandled, misshapen, such muddled handling of human hopes'. Self-indulgent regrets, defeatism, railing against fate, gloom about future prospects: all these were anathema to Keynes in literature as in life. The modern classic he recommended in 1936 was Forster's A Room with a View, which had been published nearly thirty years earlier. He was, however, grateful for the 'perfect relaxation' provided by those 'unpretending, workmanlike, ingenious, abundant, delightful heaven-sent entertainers', Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace and P. G. Wodehouse. 'There is a great purity in these writers, a remarkable absence of falsity and fudge, so that they live and move, serene, Olympian and aloof, free from any pretended contact with the realities of life.' Keynes preferred memoirs as 'more agreeable and amusing, so much more touching, bringing so much more of the pattern of life, than ... the daydreams of a nervous wreck, which is the average modern novel'. He loved good theatre, settling into his seat at the first night of a production of Turgenev's A Month in the Country with a blissful sigh and the words, 'Ah! this is the loveliest play in all the world.'55 Rather as Keynes was a grabby eater, with table-manners that offended Norton and other Bloomsbury groupers, so he could be impatient to reach the end of books. In the inter-war period publishers used to have a 'gathering' of eight or sixteen pages at the back of their volumes to publicize their other books-in-print. He excised these advertisements while reading a book, so that as he turned a page he could always see how far he must go before finishing. A reader, said Keynes, should approach books 'with all his senses; he should know their touch and their smell. He should learn how to take them in his hands, rustle their pages and reach in a few seconds a first intuitive impression of what they contain. He should ... have touched many thousands, at least ten times as many as he reads. He should cast an eye over books as a shepherd over sheep, and judge them with the rapid, searching glance with which a cattle-dealer eyes cattle.' Keynes in 1927 reproached his fellow countrymen for their low expenditure in bookshops. 'How many people spend even PS10 a year on books? How many spend 1 per cent of their incomes? To buy a book ought to be felt not as an extravagance, but as a good deed, a social duty which blesses him who does it.' He wished to muster 'a mighty army ... of Bookworms, pledged to spend PS10 a year on books, and, in the higher ranks of the Brotherhood, to buy a book a week'. Keynes was a votary of good bookshops, whether their stock was new or second-hand. 'A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye. To walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon's entertainment. library books bookshops Richard Davenport-Hines
f170e48 Imensamente generosos, os meus livros, nao me fazem nenhuma exigencia, antes me oferecem todo tipo de iluminacao. library books livro Alberto Manguel
4c71600 Tal como os livros de Petrarca, os meus sabem infinitamente mais do que eu e agradeco-lhes por sequer tolerarem a minha presenca. Por vezes, sinto que abuso desse privilegio. library books livro Alberto Manguel
571da04 "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." library service Marilyn Johnson
1a47cff "A library is a place to go for a reality check, a bracing dose of literature, or a "true reflection of our history," whether it's a brick-and-mortar building constructed a century ago or a fanciful arrangement of computer codes. The librarian is the organizer, the animating spirit behind it, and the navigator. Her job is to create order out of the confusion of the past, even as she enables us to blast into the future." libraries library library-and-information-science library-science librarianship librarians Marilyn Johnson
745ce64 But what matters is not the similarities your imagination finds, but the similarities that are implicit in the image, and they are not necessarily the same. I have noticed that the more imaginative readers are often the less successful. Their minds leap to what they think is there rather than waiting with patience. And what matters most of all is where the chosen meaning comes in the hierarch of meaning, you see, and for that there is no alternative to the books. That is why the only alethiometers we know about are kept in or by great libraries. libraries library truth Philip Pullman
6547666 I felt for the first time that the library belonged here. The house was reclaiming its spirit, and the library, which had stood aloof and apart for so many years, was turning back into what it was always meant to be: the heart of this home. library Ruth Reichl
e2ee3ec The Red Hill was referred to in the most ancient surviving work of Tamil literature, the , which itself makes reference to an even earlier work now lost to history which in turn had supposedly been part of a library of archaic texts, all now also vanished, the compilation of which was said to have begun more than 10,000 years previously. This had been the library of the legendary First Sangam -- or 'Academy' -- of the lost Tamil civilization of Kumari Kandam, swallowed up, as Captain Narayan put it, 'by a major eruption of the sea'. library kumari-kandam tamil deep-human-history ice-age-civilizations Graham Hancock
b18647d For DeHaven it was well worth the extra money to a federal budget that had always allocated more to war than it ever did to peaceful purposes. For a fraction of the cost of one missile he could purchase on the open market every work the library needed to round out its rare books collection. Yet politicians believed that missiles kept you safe, whereas actually books did, and for a simple reason. Ignorance caused wars, and people who read widely were seldom ignorant. war library ignorance David Baldacci
a403d33 I've often felt that my library explained who I was, gave me a shifting self that transformed itself constantly throughout the years. libraries library self Alberto Manguel
485ede2 "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." libraries library reading Kathryn Lasky
aaee389 The shelves were supposed to be loaded with books--but they were, of course, really doors: each book-lid opened as exciting as Alice putting her gold key in the lock. I spent days running in and out of other worlds like a time bandit, or a spy. I was as excited as I've ever been in my life, in that library: scoring new books the minute they came in; ordering books I'd heard of--then waiting, fevered, for them to arrive, like they were the word Christmas. libraries library reading library-books Caitlin Moran
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