“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.”

“All of the life-changing awesome
words and pictures and ideas
inside your library are useless
without just one word outside
your library: Open.”

Mo Willems (1968) American children's illustrator and writer

“Libraries, as spaces, need to continue to inspire the public to dream big and to think great thoughts. Cities, towns, and academic communities of all shapes and sizes need the free, open public spaces that libraries–and only libraries–provide.”

John Palfrey (1972) US law professor

“Libraries allow children to ask questions about the world and find the answers. And the wonderful thing is that once a child learns to use a library, the doors to learning are always open.”

Laura Bush (1946) First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009

“Libraries change lives. They are the soul of a people.”

Diane Ackerman (1948) Author, poet, naturalist

“They blew up a library. They haven’t just offended me, they have attacked and insulted every single citizen of this place who used that library, who contributed to it, who even so much as might have used it someday in the future.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

“Nothing is pleasanter to me than exploring in a library.”

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) British writer

“At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

“A library doesn’t need windows, Andrew. We have books, which are windows into worlds we never even dreamed possible.”

Chris Grabenstein book Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

“Libraries are not made; they grow. Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.”

Augustine Birrell (1850–1933) British politician