When you read, don't just consider what the author thinks, consider what you think.
I’m completely library educated. I’ve never been to college. I went down to the library when I was in grade school in Waukegan, and in high school in Los Angeles, and spent long days every summer in the library. I used to steal magazines from a store on Genesee Street, in Waukegan, and read them and then steal them back on the racks again. That way I took the print off with my eyeballs and stayed honest. I didn’t want to be a permanent thief, and I was very careful to wash my hands before I read them. But with the library, it’s like catnip, I suppose: you begin to run in circles because there’s so much to look at and read. And it’s far more fun than going to school, simply because you make up your own list and you don’t have to listen to anyone. When I would see some of the books my kids were forced to bring home and read by some of their teachers, and were graded on—well, what if you don’t like those books?
I am a librarian. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love with libraries, I was just a six-year-old boy. The library fueled all of my curiosities, from dinosaurs to ancient Egypt. When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week. I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school.
Books are nice, aren’t they? With just one sentence you can get lost in all sorts of dreams. The way I think of it, literature allows the reader’s consciousness to deeply relish the author and be closer to him.
A good book is always good, no matter how many times you’ve already read it.
— You know what that's about?
— No.
— You'll like it. It's about a prison break.
— We ought to file that under Educational, too, oughtn't we?
Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.
I'm sorry, but how can one possibly pay attention to a book with no pictures in it?