#libra

Librarians are tour-guides for all of knowledge. ↗

— Patrick Ness

#libraries #thoughtful #inspirational

Good librarians are natural intelligence operatives. They possess all of the skills and characteristics required for that work: curiosity, wide-ranging knowledge, good memories, organization and analytical aptitude, and discretion. ↗

— Marilyn Johnson

#librarianship #intelligence

A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself. ↗

— Doris Lessing

#love

I was the kind of kid whose parents would drop him off at the local town library on their way to work, and I'd go and work my way through the children's area. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#children #drop #go #him #i

There's not a good poet I know who has not at the beck and call of his memory a vast quantity of poetry that composes his mental library. ↗

— Anthony Hecht

#call #composes #good #his #i

Library campaigners are not prepared to stand by and watch something they cherish be dismantled brick by brick. ↗

— Kate Mosse

#cherish #dismantled #library #prepared #something

The library is seen as a force for self improvement and the pursuit of knowledge. I fear that in many cases this is no longer true, if it ever was. ↗

— John Redwood

#ever #fear #force #i #improvement

We live in the country, and I have a huge library there. When we go to London for the winter I never know which books to take. I never know what I am going to need. That's the only disadvantage. ↗

— Mordecai Richler

#books #country #disadvantage #go #going

A great library doesn't have to be big or beautiful. It doesn't have to have the best facilities or the most efficient staff or the most users. A great library provides. It is enmeshed in the life of a community in a way that makes it indispensable. A great library is one nobody notices because it is always there, and always has what people need. ↗

— Vicki Myron

#beauty

If there's a 13- or 14-year old kid who is yearning for something beyond the social forces in his own world, in his own neighborhood, the library is the only place where he can go to find that. It was exciting and thrilling to me all the time I worked in the library. It's such a force for social good and it can do so much. ↗

— Gary Ross

#exciting #find #force #forces #go