The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.

Books are the door of escape from the forest.

A man must have something to cling to. Without that he is as a pea vine sprawling in search of a trellis.... I was all asprawl, clinging to Beauty, which is a very restless trellis.

We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. . . . The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witch hunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist.

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

A library is many things, but particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books... Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had.

Familiarity is the thing-the sense of belonging. It grants exemption from all evil, all shabbiness.