The weight of absence is as much a feature of any library as the constriction of order and space.

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.

Release the baggage of the past. Carry joy instead.

I feel as if I am being left out, as though I’m some straggler and people can’t quite remember to stay back for me.

It is so dam difficult to be simple.

As long as you say there is no hope, then there will be no hope, but if you go down and take a stance, then there will be hope.

When the ego dominates in organizations, even spiritual organizations, there is usually a big drama or upheaval of some kind, and self-destruction begins.

All that shimmers on the surface of the world, all that we call interesting, is the fruit of ignorance and inebriation.

Even worse than seeing women's privacy violated on social media is reading the accompanying comments that show such a lack of empathy.

The question before the advanced nations is not whether they can afford to help the developing nations, but whether they can afford not to do so.

You should focus on being more interested than interesting.

Plato and Hitler were both the same kind of consistent socialists who planned also for the production of future socialists, the breeding and education of future members of society.