Marilyn Johnson

“Maybe it begins the day you pledge allegiance, face the flag and suddenly clutch your left clavicle because you find a tender…

— Marilyn Johnson

“I regretted my human form briefly; it would be so much easier to drag and rope information into the brain as neatly…

— Marilyn Johnson

The vast waterfall of history pours down, and a few obituarists fill teacups with the stories.

— Marilyn Johnson

Librarians consider free access to information the foundation of democracy.

— Marilyn Johnson

This is the greatest and most fraught romance of modern society, the marriage between the IT staff and those who depend on…

— Marilyn Johnson

We are all living history, and it’s hard to say now what will be important in the future. One thing’s certain, though:…

— Marilyn Johnson

“Yes, librarians use punctuation marks to make little emoticons, smiley and frowny faces in their correspondence, but if there were one for…

— Marilyn Johnson

“Bibliomancy: "Divination by jolly well Looking It Up.”

— Marilyn Johnson

I was under the librarians' protection. Civil servants and servants of civility, they had my back. The would be whatever they needed…

— Marilyn Johnson

There's a magical part of it (writing obituaries), too, which is you're trying to breathe life back into someone who has just…

— Marilyn Johnson

“It’s almost impossible to teach that sort of writing except by pointing students to a stack of clips and telling them, 'Inhale…

— Marilyn Johnson

Librarians are essential players in the information revolution because they level that field. They enable those without money or education to read…

— Marilyn Johnson

They seemed to be quiet types, the women and men in rubber-soled shoes. Their favorite word, after literacy, was privacy--for their patrons…

— Marilyn Johnson

Good librarians are natural intelligence operatives. They possess all of the skills and characteristics required for that work: curiosity, wide-ranging knowledge, good…

— Marilyn Johnson

In tough times, a librarian is a terrible thing to waste.

— Marilyn Johnson

We'll always need printed books that don't mutate the way digital books do; we'll always need places to display books, auditoriums for…

— Marilyn Johnson

In tight economic times, with libraries sliding farther and farther down the list of priorities, we risk the loss of their ideals,…

— Marilyn Johnson

“Members of the Order take vows of literacy, obstinancy and bibliomancy. Bibliomancy? It's defined for us a little further down: "Divination by…

— Marilyn Johnson

“Who knows how many people are invisible because their stories don't fit our categories?”

— Marilyn Johnson

Libraries have always been there for me. Of course I'll stand up for them!

— Marilyn Johnson