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

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

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

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.