Quotes about library

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“The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a good library.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

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

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

“To Homer, libraries were holy places like churches, and the priestly librarians a blessed race, a saving remnant in a world of sin. Whenever God grew impatient and decided to destroy the world he remembered the librarians and stayed his hand.”

Jane Langton (1922–2018) Novelist, children's writer

“I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

“Here's another piece of advice, only date people who have read a different set of books than you have read, it will save you lots of time in the library.”

Tony Kushner (1956) American playwright and screenwriter

“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

“One day she's throwing a book at me. The next, we're making out behind the library.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

“If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I'll be all right as long as there's a lending library.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“Your library is your portrait.”

Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British journalist

“Will!" Charlotte threw up her hands. "Why didn't you say so?"
"You know, the books on demon pox are in the library," Will said with an injured tone. "I wasn't preventing anyone from reading them”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

“We don’t have to destroy the library of the past. We just need to give it a face-lift.”

Scott Douglas (1963) American wheelchair tennis player

“When rivers flooded, when fire fell from the sky, what a fine place the library was, the many rooms, the books. With luck, no one found you. How could they!--when you were off to Tanganyika in '98, Cairo in 1812, Florence in 1492!?”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

“Sir, the fact that the book is in a public library brings no comfort. Books are the one element in which I am personally and nakedly acquisitive. If it weren't for the law I would steal them. If it weren't for my purse I would buy them.”

Harold J. Laski (1893–1950) British academic

“Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

“If you steal any of the books from the library, I will know, and you'll be sorry.
Jessamine Lovelace.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

“A real education takes place, not in the lecture hall or library, but in the rooms of friends, with earnest frolic and happy disputation.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

“She closed the book and put her cheek against it. There was still an odor of a library on it, of dust, leather, binding glue, and old paper, one book carrying the smell of hundreds.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

“The best candy shop a child can be left alone in, is the library”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not an article for mere consumption, but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

“Surrounded by stories surreal and sublime, I fell in Love in the Library once upon a time.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

“There are books that I own that somehow even without reading them they mean something to me. So I think people have a relationship with books in a library whether you’ve come specifically to read them or not.”

Rem Koolhaas (1944) Dutch architect (b.1944)

“It was the kind of library
he had only read about in books.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

“A library should be like a pair of open arms.”

Roger Rosenblatt (1940) American writer

“It's a library, only the stupid or the evil are afraid of those”

Iain Banks (1954–2013) Scottish writer

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

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

“… the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

“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

“Instead of going home, I drove to the library. To hell with human beings. I’d always felt safer with stories than with flesh and blood.”

Alice Hoffman book The Ice Queen

“sometimes after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it”

Jeannette Walls book Half Broke Horses

“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.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

“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.”

Sidney Sheldon (1917–2007) American writer

“When I tell people I went to library school, the most common reaction is either “You’re joking, right?” or “They have schools for librarians? Do they teach you how to properly sssh people?”

Scott Douglas (1963) American wheelchair tennis player

“In my world there would be as many public libraries as there are Starbucks.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

“Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually.”

James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author

“Book lovers will understand me,
and they will know too that part of the pleasure
of a library lies in its very existence.”

Jan Morris (1926) British historian

“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

“Nothing is more impotent than an unread library.”

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

“I lived in the royal library, among all the books."
"You resided in a… library?"
"Theresuites inside and great balconies that overlooked the city, but yes. I was most content among those shelves, so one night, I simply never left.”

Kresley Cole American writer

“Controller Borasus sighed with relief. Libraries were not places of danger. It had to be a hoax.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Hexwood

“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.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

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

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“As it is she will probably turn out to be one of these acid-faced virgins that sit behind little desks in public libraries and stamp dates in books.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

“What better place to kill time than a library?”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

“In a few minutes I heard the books' voices: a low, steady, unsupressible hum. I'd heard it many times before. I've always had a finely tuned ear for a library's accumulations of echo and desire. Libraries are anything but hushed.”

Martha Cooley book The Archivist

“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

“Now I know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcolm Muggeridge on the television last night, and I understood nearly every word. It all adds up. A bad home, poor diet, not liking punk. I think I will join the library and see what happens.”

Sue Townsend (1946–2014) English writer and humorist

“It's Will," she said. "He's being absolutely ridiculous in the dining room."
Charlotte looked puzzled. "How is this different from him being totally ridiculous in the library or the weapons room or any of the other places he's usually ridiculous?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

“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

“I remember that I stood on the library steps holding my books and looking for a minute at the soft hinted green in the branches against the sky and wishing, as I always did, that I could walk home across the sky instead of through the village.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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

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

“Your library is your portrait.”

Linda Fairstein (1947) American writer

“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

“I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.”

Roger Zelazny book Nine Princes in Amber

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

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

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

Diane Ackerman (1948) Author, poet, naturalist

“Love made you admire funny things about a person, like how good she was at remembering to return her library books and at slicing cucumbers very thin. She was a veritable wonder at pulling a splinter out of her foot.”

Ann Brashares (1967) American children's writer

“A man's library is a sort of harem.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“One of the nastier trends in library management in recent years is the notion that libraries should be 'responsive to their patrons'.”

Connie Willis (1945) American science fiction writer

“Dear me, how I love a library.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

“I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Words

“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

“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

“There's a serendipity to real life that the Internet can't duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and it's that book that changes your life.”

Laura Lippman (1959) Detective fiction writer

“I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

“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

“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

“Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.”

Jorge Luis Borges book The Theologians

“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.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

“Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us.”

Stephen King book 'Salem's Lot

“You see, I don't belive that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, that has been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians.”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

“You're always in the kitchen," Alianora said when she poked her head through the door a moment later. "Or the library. Don't you ever do anything but cook and read?”

Patricia C. Wrede Dealing with Dragons

“My library is an archive of longings.”

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

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

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

“Of course, the guests were also staring because they know of my relationship with Camille, and are wondering what we might be doing here in the library… alone." He wiggled his eyebrows at Tessa.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“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

“I don't browse in bookshops, I browse in libraries, where you can take a book home and read it, and if you like it you go to a bookshop and buy it.”

Helene Hanff book 84, Charing Cross Road

“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.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

“It's wrong for libraries to have limited budgets.”

Jo Walton (1964) Welsh Canadian writer

“I picture heaven as a vast library, with unlimited volumes to read. And paintings and statues to examine galore. I picture it as a great doorway to learning… rather than one great dull answer to all our questions”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

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

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

“When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

“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

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

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

“America, why are your libraries full of tears?”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

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

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

“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.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

“You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library.' She pointed to the shelf opposite. 'Over there was, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

“It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

“If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot."

[(, Vol. 33 No. 15, 28 July 2011)]”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

“She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.”

Maud Hart Lovelace book Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

“Library-denigrators, pay heed: suggesting that the Internet is a viable substitute for libraries is like saying porn could replace your wife.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

“I'm not an angel, Jace," she repeated. "I don't return library books. I steal illegal music off the internet. I lie to my mom. I am.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

“OKAY. So I was going to the library every Saturday. So what? So what? It's not like I was reading books or anything.”

Gary D. Schmidt book Okay for Now

“Paradise will be a kind of library”

Jorge Luis Borges Dreamtigers

“Sometimes when I'm in a bookstore or library, I am overwhelmed by all the things that I do not know. Then I am seized by a powerful desire to read all the books, one by one.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

“It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.”

Penelope Lively (1933) British novelist

“…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