#libraries

A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. ↗

— Caitlin Moran

#libraries #profound #imagination

I fall in love with any girl who smells of library paste. ↗

— Charles Schulz

#libraries #love #love

Libraries are the future of reading. When the economy is down, we need to make it easier for people to buy and read books for free, not harder. It is stupid to sacrifice tomorrow’s book buyers for today’s dollars, especially when it’s obvious that the source in question doesn’t have any more dollars to give you. ↗

— Courtney Milan

#economy #libraries #library #money #readingy

The harvest of the years awaits you here, Culled with slow toil, and heaped with bloody sweat, The truths that men have died to bring to light Are laid before you in these quiet halls. Upon these shelves your eager hands shall find The keys to open doors not yet unlocked, The torch to kindle new and brighter lamps, The chart to plot your course beyond the stars, The clues to all the labyrinths of thought. Here you shall meet the men whose names are carved Deep-hewn forever on the rocks of time... You shall be guests of all the greatest minds. ↗

— Josephine P. Beaty

#libraries #reading #men

We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of this memory is called the library ↗

— Carl Sagan

#communal-memory #humanity #humanity-and-society #humans #libraries

Every reader his or her book. Every book its reader. ↗

— S.R. Ranganathan

#libraries #librarians

A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them. ↗

— Lemony Snicket

#reading #read

[D]on't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read... ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#libraries #library #reading #read

A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert. ↗

— Andrew Carnegie

#community #enrich #libraries #community

About the library," he whispered. He took out the pencil stub from his pocket and poised it over the page. Will you write like Mr. Blake or like yourself?" I inquired. He wrote and whispered the words aloud as he did. "I am in the library. It smells like old stuff." It smells familiar," I suggested. "It smells like words." Because his left side was to me, I couldn't easily take his hand to write. Books are boring," James said as he wrote. They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered. He thought about this and then wrote with a smile, "I hate books." From A Certain Slant of Light ↗

— Laura Whitcomb

#libraries #young-adult-fiction #young-adult-fiction