With a library it is easier to hope for serendipity than to look for a precise answer.

You would do well to be less particular. With a library it is easier to hope for serendipity than to look for a precise answer.

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.

You don't spend your life hanging around books without learning a thing or two.

What is luck', he said, 'but the ability to exploit accidents?

It wouldn't have taken a lot of luck. It would have taken someone who could have asked and gotten answers to the right follow-up questions and then put it together.