#libra

I look at the books on my library shelves. They certainly seem dormant. But what if the characters are quietly rearranging themselves? What if Emma Woodhouse doesn’t learn from her mistakes? What if Tom Jones descends into a sodden life of poaching and outlawry? What if Eve resists Satan, remembering God’s injunction and Adam’s loving advice? I imagine all the characters bustling to get back into their places as they feel me taking the book down from the shelf. “Hurry,” they say, “he’ll expect to find us exactly where he left us, never mind how much his life has changed in the meantime. ↗

— Verlyn Klinkenborg

#library #reading #change

There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference books. They are like understanding friends—always ready to meet your mood, always ready to change the subject when you have had enough of this or that. ↗

— J. Donald Adams

#friends #library #mood #truth #change

Just as we may, through an appalled realization that we were unaware of what was going on in the mind of one we thought we knew, come to wonder how we ever know what another person is thinking or feeling, so too we may, having on some occasion wanted badly to understand and having clearly failed, come to wonder how we ever manage to understand, and how we know that we have succeeded. ↗

— Patrick Wilson

#communication #connections #inquiry #libraries #understanding

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 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 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

What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it feels about education. ↗

— Harold Howe

#libraries #library #school #education

A library is a place where you learn what teachers were afraid to teach you. ↗

— Alan M. Dershowitz

#libraries #political-commentary #education

I grew up in libraries, and I hope I've learned never to take them for granted. A thriving library is the heart of its community, providing access to information and educational opportunities, bringing people together, leveling the playing field, and archiving our history. ↗

— Josie Brown

#education #information #libraries #education