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.

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.

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.

It meant that New York philanthropists, New York society, would now rediscover the library. ... that learning, books, education have glamour, that self-improvement has glamour, that hope has glamour.

Dignity is not negotiable. Dignity is the honor of the family.

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.

The library is our house of intellect, our transcendental university, with one exception: no one graduates from a library. No one possibly can, and no one should.