Alberto Manguel: Book

“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.”

“At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader.”

“Each book was a world unto itself, and in it I took refuge.”

“I wanted to live among books.”

“Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth.”

“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 books.”

“Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.”

“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.”

“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.”

“My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices.”

“But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence.”

“Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read.”

“Unpacking books is a revelatory activity.”

“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.”

“One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.”

“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.”

“The association of books with their readers is unlike any other between objects and their users.”

“Books read in a public library never have the same flavour as books read in the attic or the kitchen.”

“The listeners who buy books after a reading multiply that reading; the author who realizes that he or she may be writing on a blank page but is at least not speaking to a blank wall may be encouraged by the experience, and write more.”