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.

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

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

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

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 book is here to stay. What we're doing is symbolic of the peaceful coexistence of the book and the computer.

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.