The library is central to our free society. It is a critical element in the free exchange of information at the heart of our democracy.

In our democratic society, the library stands for hope, for learning, for progress, for literacy, for self-improvement and for civic engagement. The library is a symbol of opportunity, citizenship, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and hence, is a symbol for democracy itself.

Everybody is somebody, so you don't have to introduce anybody.

The only condition a library asks its users to honor is to do justice to their own imagination, their own curiosity and their own thirst for knowledge, and in the process, to achieve their own independence of mind and spirit.

One of my greatest sources of pride as president of the New York Public Library is the continuance of the library's open, free, and democratic posture, the fact that we are here for Everyman, that we are indeed Everyman's university, the place where the scholar who is not college-affiliated can come and work and feel at home.

Libraries keep the records on behalf of all humanity. the unique and the absurd, the wise and the fragments of stupidity.

The library is not only a diary of the human race, but marks an act of faith in the continuity of humanity.