I come from food the way some people come from money. Food was the medium I grew up in, what we talked about, what shaped our days.

You can't out-travel sadness. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings

Engagements - they are like a prayer before eating, best quick.

People think librarians are unromantic, unimaginative. This is not true. We are people whose dreams run in particular ways. Ask a mountain climber what he feels when he sees a mountain; a lion tamer what goes through his mind when he meets a new lion; a doctor confronted with a beautiful malfunctioning body. The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder.

In reference works, as in sin, omission is as bad as willful misbehavior.

truthfully, this is the fabric of all my fantasies: love shown not by a kiss or a wild look or a careful hand but by a willingness for research. i don’t dream of someone who understands me immediately, who seems to have known me my entire life, who says, i know me too. i want someone keen to learn my own strange organization, amazed at what’s revealed; someone who asks, and then what, and then what?

Grief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving.