[A writer] must try to think clearly, to feel deeply, to write honestly. If he is fortunate he will make a living, but his work will never be anymore essentially clear and deep and honest than he himself is, and he will be judged finally not for how many copies his books have sold, but for what they have done to enrich the lives of their readers, now and in time to come.

Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow.

Unless their use by readers bring them to life, books are indeed dead things.

Believers and doers are what we need - faithful librarians who are humble in the presence of books.... To be in a library is one of the purest of all experiences. This awareness of library's unique, even sacred nature, is what should be instilled in our neophites.

I have always been reconciled to the fact that I was born a bibliomaniac, never have I sought a cure, and my dearest friends have been drawn from those likewise suffering from book madness.

A book is one of the most patient of all man's inventions. Centuries mean nothing to a well-made book. It awaits its destined reader, come when he may, with eager hand and seeing eye. Then occurs one of the great examples of union, that of a man with a book, pleasurable, sometimes fruitful, potentially world-changing, simple; and in a library...witho ut cost to the reader.

No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a correspondingly great library... When this is no longer true, then will our civilization have come to an end.