Books themselves need no defense. Their spokesmen come and go, their readers live and die, they remain constant.

[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.

The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's: the power to see, to sense, and to say. That is, he is perceptive, he is feeling, and he has the power to express in language what he observes and reacts to.

Books are islands in the ocean of time. They are also oases in the deserts of time.

Books themselves need no defense. Their spokesmen come and go, their readers live and die, they remain constant.

To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength.

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.