Every library is a library of preferences, and every chosen category implies an exclusion. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
The world encyclopedia, the universal library, exists, and it is the world itself. — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Existing libraries, in their very being, seem to question the authority of those in power. — 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
Books read in a public library never have the same flavour as books read in the attic or the kitchen. — 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
“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
If the library in the morning suggests an echo of the severe and reasonable wishful order of the world, the library at… — 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
Deserted libraries hold the shades of writers who worked within, and are haunted by their absence. — 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
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
It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly… — 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
A library is an ever-growing entity; it multiples seemingly unaided, it reproduces itself by purchase, theft, borrowings, gifts, by suggesting gaps through… — 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
At night, here in the library, the ghosts have voices… The various qualities of my readings seem to permeate my every muscle,… — 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
We can roam the bloated stacks of the Library of Alexandria, where all imagination and knowledge are assembled; we can recognize in… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“There is nothing,” Naudé wrote, “that renders a Library more recommendable, than when every man finds in it that which he is… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
We can imagine the books we'd like to read, even if they have not yet been written, and we can imagine libraries… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
It has always been my experience that, whatever groupings I choose for my books, the space in which I plan to lodge… — 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
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
“The weight of absence is as much a feature of any library as the constriction of order and space.” — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“It is likely that libraries will carry on and survive, as long as we persist in lending words to the world that… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
“Libraries, have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Digestion of words as well; I often read aloud to myself in my writing corner in the library, where no one can… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
If the Library of Alexandria was the emblem of our ambition of omniscience, the Web is the emblem of our ambition of… — 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
