If all shy, soulful young women who dreamed of becoming writers for a living actually could do that, imagine the library we would have.

She'd always been a little excitable, a little more passionate about books than your average person, but she was supposed to be -- she was a librarian, after all.

Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.

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

My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid.

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes.