Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers.

Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth.

The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned.

If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity.

One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.

Deserted libraries hold the shades of writers who worked within, and are haunted by their absence.

Entering a library, I am always stuck by the way in which a certain vision of the world is imposed upon the reader through its categories and its order.

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.

Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.

Unpacking books is a revelatory activity.

If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are not, and cannot be.

In this day and age we care more about our pride than our lives.

...to imitate Western civilization in its spirit, its mode of life and its social organization is impossible without dealing a fatal blow to the very existence of Islam as an ideological proposition.

Fights can be dumped in a dozen ways. Sometimes everybody but the fighter knows. Sometimes only the fighter knows.

Hazing is an extraordinary activity that, when it occurs often enough, becomes perversely ordinary as those who engage in it grow desensitized to its inhumanity.

If Jesus were living in our culture, he would probably hang out in coffeehouses.

My intent was not to go after Rush - I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh. I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. ... There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.

Everything is disposable now: disposable lighters, disposable blades, disposable stars. They inflate you up for one big deal and then they look for someone else.

My dad was a golden gloves boxer in the Marine Corps, then a deputy sheriff. My mom worked as an office assistant.

There is so much hurt in this game of searching for a mate, of testing, trying. And you realize suddenly that you forgot it was a game, and turn away in tears.