The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned.

But a reader's ambition knows no bounds.

I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.

But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence.

If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity.

At night, here in the library, the ghosts have voices.

We can imagine the books we'd like to read, even if they have not yet been written, and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess, even if they are well beyond our reacher, because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles--a library that, in its variety and complexity, fully reflects the reader we are.