to achieve unity without uniformity is the whole essence of the democratic way of life.

To visit a new country for the first time is great fun; but it is even greater fun to introduce somebody else to a country that you know.

There was one bursting now, a delicate constellation of many-coloured stars which drifted down and lingered in the still air.... The final rocket went up, a really large one, a piece of reckless extravagance. Its sibilant uprush was impressive, dragonlike; it soared twice as high as any they had had before.... The sparks from the rocket came pouring down the sky in a slow golden cascade, vanishing one by one into a lake of darkness.

librarianship is one of the few callings in the world for which is it still possible to feel unqualified admiration and respect.

Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.

It took me forty years on earth To reach this sure conclusion: There is no Heaven but clarity, No Hell except confusion.

And I am a mockery, who was God before.