No matter how tiny you look, you can lead huge men if you have what the huge men don't have.

The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.

Delighted," Jess said. "I think all houses should be stuffed with books. It makes them--""Homes?" the doctor finished. "You are quite the heretic, for someone in a Library uniform.""Guilty.

...but one can't be irredeemable who shows reverence for books.

She was a poetry book with the wrong dust jacket, shelved in the Reference section.

Books gnaw at me from around the edges of my life, demanding more time and attention. I am always left hungry.

Whenever one of us introduced an old favorite, we savored the other's first delight like a shared meal eaten with a newly acquired gusto, as if we'd never truly tasted it before.

All of us are writers reading other people's writing, turning pages or clicking to the next screen with pleasure and admiration. All of us absorb other people's words, feeling like we have gotten to know the authors personally in our own ways, even if just a tiny bit. True, we may also harbor jealousy or resentment, disbelief or disappointment. We may wish we had written those words ourselves or berate ourselves for knowing we never could or sigh with relief that we didn't, but thank goodness someone else has.

To whom do books belong? The books we read and the books we write are both ours and not ours. They're also theirs.

Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble himself further about their entertainment.

This is every reader's catch-22: the more you read, the more you realize you haven't read; the more you yearn to read more, the more you understand that you have, in fact, read nothing. There is no way to finish, and perhaps that shouldn't be the goal.

That's the most important thing. If I keep reading, maybe I can hold my own.

Sitting in the brightly lit library, surrounded by books, in total silence, that was ma personal zenith.

The nobles had made reading unpopular, as it showed that one couldn’t afford to buy spells or magical devices, since one had to get knowledge to do things the ordinary way; even if this view held little logic, the king himself was known to insult readers as “bookfaces” or “unable to think for themselves, so they need to spout what others have said,” and these opinions became popular, as did most views expressed by the king or his son.

Love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives foreboding. Listen to me, let me supply you with books; do let me see you sometimes, be your brother and teacher, as you said at Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should be committing this long suicide.

They were just so different, and she kept wondering if he'd realize this was a mistake at some point; if, once she stopped being the novelty, the random American, he would recognize who she really was -- a nerdy bookworm, a happy loner -- and move on.

She wrote books—and she was happy.

Mom, I feel good. This dress makes me feel like someone I didn't know I could be. I've never owned anything like it. But if when you see this - when you see me- you think it's a pity, that it's a shame I didn't lose a few, then screw you, Mom. Try harder.

Why, he was so handsome and brave that no one would ever have suspected that he was bookish!