#libra

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 treausre of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#library #literature #reading #words #death

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. ↗

— Alberto Manguel

#death #library #death

Please bury me in the library With a dozen long-stemmed proses ↗

— J. Patrick Lewis

#death #library #reading #death

I won't be sad too often, If they bury me in the library With bookworms in my coffin. ↗

— J. Patrick Lewis

#death #library #reading #death

Just like old librarians, old coins are often more valuable than they appear at face value. ↗

— Kate Klise

#librarians #death

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

#library-books #library-in-the-digital-age #age

We can imagine the books we'd like to read, even if they have not yet been written, and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess, even if they are well beyond our reacher, because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles--a library that, in its variety and complexity, fully reflects the reader we are. ↗

— Alberto Manguel

#dream #dreaming #library #reader #reading

Choosing a new book was like looking for treasure. ↗

— Kit Pearson

#libraries #dreams

There’s a tendency to resort to romantic cliche when talking about libraries; clearly in a digital age they aren’t a “sexy” alternative. Maybe I’m old-fashioned but I still believe that the core of libraries will always be printed words rather than screens or keyboards. In any town or city, you can walk in and pick up the works of TS Eliot or Brett Easton Ellis, extremes of taste that you can dip into and thumb through without having anyone nudging you to make a purchase. There really aren’t many things in life that can enrich you for free yet ask for nothing in return. ↗

— Nicky Wire

#age

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. ↗

— L.M. Montgomery

#library #reading #dreams