library

Revolutionary law number one," someone said. "Capitalism has cheated us. Books are not to be bought, they are to be repossessed.""This is robbery," I said. "Let's not kid ourselves. And don't do that to me again. You scared me to death.""It's not robbery. Books are ideas. They should be able to circulate freely within society. At no price at all, or for pennies. Knowledge is universal. It belongs to all of us.

Hell is a library," she said, tightening her fresh knot."That really doesn't sound bad, Julia.""That's because I'm not finished. Hell is a library of books containing every word you've ever said, and videotapes of everything you've ever done.""So what. Do you have to watch them?""No, you don't have to. But would you be able to help yourself? It would be unbearable. I couldn't resist, but I would hate myself after." She gave the noose two good, hard tugs. "Plus, even if you could resist the temptation, you'd eventually get so bored that you'd do anything. And the only thing to read is stuff that you've said and the only thing to do is watch yourself.

the library is the last free space for the gathering and sharing of knowledge: __ur attention cannot be bought and sold in a library._ As a tradition barely a century and a half old in the United States, it gives physical form to the principle that public access to knowledge is the foundation of democracy ["What Libraries Can (Still) Do," The New York Review Daily, October 26, 2015].

I like to imagine that, on the day after my last, my library and I will crumble together, so that even when I am no more I'll still be with my books.

Teachers are often rightly praised for all they do for our children. But there are others out there who are working to make the youth of today a happy and productive generation of tomorrow. And I'm proud to say I'm one of these "others" providing a positive environment for many wonderful children who are full of promise.

now,never mindthe boy who came out of that reading rooma new man,safe in the hope of what was to comein the summers of his life.

And for the next long years of my life, I tried to remember only the reading, not the terrible things that happened to me as I came and went up and down the stairs. The library became my sanctuary. I loved the ways the precious stories took shape but always had room to be read again. I became fascinated with how writers did that. How did they make a story feel so complete and yet to open-ended? It was like painting a picture that changed each time you looked at it.

One of the reasons I decided to enter this profession," one of the Riot Librarrrians wrote, "was because I'm in love with information, and the library remains one of the few spaces in our lives where information is not a commodity.... There's a subversive element to librarianship that I adore.

The library became the cathedral where I would come to worship amd the stories were as precious to me as prayers.

In the wide pile, by others heeded not,Hers was one sacred solitary spot,Whose gloomy aisles and bending shelves containFor moral hunger food, and cures for moral pain.

I have always kept a stack of library books next to my bed as a lifeline. If I ever woke in the middle of the night too scared to move or too sad to roll over, the books were my saviors.

They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.' Our learned men have cited this reasoning as the height of absurdity. However, suppose Gregory the Great was there instead of Omar and the Gospel instead of the Koran. The library would still have been burned, and that might well have been the finest moment in the life of this illustrious pontiff.

I felt for the first time that the library belonged here. The house was reclaiming its spirit, and the library, which had stood aloof and apart for so many years, was turning back into what it was always meant to be: the heart of this home.

The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man

Sis took Eva to the public library and showed her how to get a card. Every week, Eva read her way through the works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, Henry James and Elizabeth Gaskell. She dreamed of heroines from modest backgrounds attracting unprecedented attentions, soaring tales of love across social divides and sudden unexpected reversals of fortunes. In these pages, anything was possible, even for a girl like her.

We each contribute our own book to the great library of humanity.

She sighed and looked at him sympathetically. 'Cool flame tricks aside, there's no competition.'He lifted his eyebrow. 'Library wins?''Every single time.

In the houses of the humble a little library in my opinion is a most precious possession.