The association of books with their readers is unlike any other between objects and their users. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“... to lend a book is an incitement to theft." A Reader on Reading p. 281” — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
In the light, we read the inventions of others; in the darkness we invent our own stories. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
In any of my pages in any of my books may life a perfect account of my secret experience of the world. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
In our day, computer technology and the proliferation of books on CD-ROM have not affected - as far as statistics show -… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
I don't remember ever feeling lonely; in fact, on the rare occasions when I met other children I found their games and… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
From fire, water, the passage of time, neglectful readers, and the hand of the censor, each of my books has escaped to… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“Each reader is but one chapter in the life of a book, and unless he passes his knowledge on to others, it… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“Like Petrach's, my books know infinitely more than I do, and I'm grateful that they even tolerate my presence. At times I… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Books may not change our suffering, books may not protect us from evil, books may not tell us what is good or… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“I soon discovered that one doesn't simply read Crime and Punishment or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn . One reads a certain… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“The categories that a reader brings to a reading, and the categories in which that reading itself is placed - the learned… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“As any reader knows, a printed page creates its own reading space, its own physical landscape in which the texture of the… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“The existence of any library, even mine, allows readers a sense of what their craft is truly about, a craft that struggles… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Ordered by subject, by importance, ordered according to whether the book was penned by God or by one of God's creatures, ordered… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
I had a library of maybe 1,000 books in my room in Buenos Aires. I did have the sense that everything there… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“No one stepping for the first time into a room made of books can know instinctively how to behave, what is expected,… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“Libraries, whether my own or shared with a greater reading public, have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Every reader has found charms by which to secure possession of a page that, by magic, becomes as if never read before,… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“The power of readers lies not in their ability to gather information, in their ordering and cataloguing capability, but in their gift… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“Paolo and Francesca were not ideal readers since they confess to Dante that after the first kiss they read no more. Ideal… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Entering a library, I am always stuck by the way in which a certain vision of the world is imposed upon the… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“A library is not only a place of both order and chaos; it is also the realm of chance. Books, even after… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
The shelves of books we haven't written, like those of books we haven't read, stretches out into the darkness of the universal… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
All these are readers, and their gestures, their craft, the pleasure, the responsibility and the power they derive from reading, are common… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Our books will bear witness for or against us, our books reflect who we are and who we have been, our books… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
A writer stops writing the moment he or she puts the last full stop to their text, and at that point the… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
In the dark, with the windows lit and the rows of books glittering, the library is a closed space, a universe of… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
I like to imagine that, on the day after my last, my library and I will crumble together, so that even when… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
In every literate society, learning to read is something of an initiation, a ritualized passage out of a state of dependency and… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“We read to understand our intuition of the world, to discover that someone a thousand miles and years away has put into… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
I enjoyed learning the poems, but I didn't understand of what use they might possibly be. ‘They'll keep you company on the… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
The world that is a book is devoured bya reader who is a letter in the world's text; thus a circular metaphor… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Most readers, then and now, have at some time experienced the humiliation of being told that their occupation is reprehensible. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
Libraries, whether my own or shared with a greater reading public, have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
At different times and in different places I have come to expect certain books to look a certain way, and, as in all fashions,… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
“Then one day, from the window of a car (the destination of that journey is now forgotten), I saw a billboard by the side… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
The shelves of books we haven't written, like those of books we haven't read, stretches out into the darkness of the universal library's farthest… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
“I have no feeling of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
Ordered by subject, by importance, ordered according to whether the book was penned by God or by one of God's creatures, ordered alphabetically or… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
“Ljubav je imbecilna izvesnost pomoću koje naša fantazija stvara verodostojnu utvaru.” — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
I know that something dies when i give up my books, and that my memory keeps going back to them with mournful nostalgia. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
Something about the possession of a book - an object that can contain infinite fables, words of wisdom, chronicles of times gone by, humorous… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
As centuries of dictators have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule; since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share
