Quotes about library
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo

“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.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Ashleigh Brilliant photo
Lily Tomlin photo

“If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Contributions of Jane Wagner

David Foster Wallace photo
Tony Kushner photo
Matt Damon photo

“You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.”

Matt Damon (1970) American actor, screenwriter, and producer

Source: Good Will Hunting

Richelle Mead photo
Stephen King photo
Holbrook Jackson photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Harold J. Laski photo
Diana Gabaldon photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Stephen Fry photo
Shannon Hale photo
Maya Angelou photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Jimmy Buffett photo
Rem Koolhaas photo
Roger Rosenblatt photo
Alberto Manguel photo

“At night, here in the library, the ghosts have voices.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Anthony Doerr photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Alice Hoffman photo
Jeannette Walls photo
Alberto Manguel photo
James A. Michener photo
Firoozeh Dumas photo

“Ever since we had arrived in the United States, my classmates kept asking me about magic carpets.
- They don't exist-I always said. I was wrong. Magic carpets do exist. But they are called library cards.”

Firoozeh Dumas (1965) Iranian-American memoirist

Source: Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad

John Waters photo

“Nothing is more impotent than an unread library.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Source: Role Models

Alberto Manguel photo
Ray Bradbury photo

“Oh God, without them [libraries], what have we? We have no past and we have no future.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Mojave magazine (November 1990)

Raymond Chandler photo

“I like reading in a pub rather than a library or study, as it's generally much easier to get a drink.”

Pete McCarthy (1951–2004) British travel writer

Source: McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland

Cassandra Clare photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

April 6, 1775
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2

Bell Hooks photo

“One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library..”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem

Linda Fairstein photo

“Your library is your portrait.”

Linda Fairstein (1947) American writer

Source: Lethal Legacy

Roger Ebert photo

“Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

"Critical Eye" column, Yahoo! Internet Life (September 1998), p. 66

Pat Conroy photo

“A library could show you everything if you knew where to look.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Source: My Reading Life

Ann Brashares photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“A man's library is a sort of harem.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Connie Willis photo
Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, nihil deerit.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

To Varro, in Ad Familiares IX, 4

Laura Bush photo

“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

As quoted in The 21st Century Elementary Library Media Program (2009) by Carl A. Harvey, p. 3

Laura Lippman photo
Barbara Kingsolver photo
Ben Carson photo

“Here is the treasure chest of the world - the public library, or a bookstore.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Mo Willems photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo
Alberto Manguel photo
Stephen King photo
Graham Chapman photo
Patricia C. Wrede photo
Susan Sontag photo

“My library is an archive of longings.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

Alberto Manguel photo

“In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Cassandra Clare photo
Chris Grabenstein photo
Jo Walton photo
Anne Rice photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“[Public] libraries should be open to all—except the censor.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

“You took out a book on blow-job technique from the British Library? They shouldn't have books like that in there!”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Jane Austen photo

“I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these."
- Mr. Darcy”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Source: Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Persuasion

Allen Ginsberg photo
Alberto Manguel photo
Walter Cronkite photo
Alberto Manguel photo
Jasper Fforde photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Alan Bennett photo
Joanne Harris photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Gary D. Schmidt photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Paradise will be a kind of library”

Poem of the Gifts ["Poema de los Dones"]
Dreamtigers (1960)
Variant: I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of library.

Arthur C. Clarke photo
Penelope Lively photo
Aphra Behn photo

“…that perfect Tranquillity of Life, which is no where to be found, but in retreat, a faithful Friend and a good Library…”

Aphra Behn (1640–1689) British playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer

The Lucky Mistake (1689).
Source: The Lucky Chance, Or, the Alderman's Bargain