Ultimately, The Number Of Books Always Exceeds

In My Fool Hardy Youth, When My Friends Were Dreaming Of Heroic Deeds In The Realms Of Engineering And Law, Finance And National Politics, I Dreamt Of Becoming A Librarian.

Every Reader Has Found Charms By Which To Secure Possession Of A Page That, By Magic, Becomes As If Never Read Before, Fresh And Immaculate.

At Different Times And In Different Places I Have Come To Expect Certain Books To Look A Certain Way, And, As In All Fashions, These Changing Features Fix A Precise Quality Onto A Book's Definition. I Judge A Book By Its Cover; I Judge A Book By Its Shape.

It Used To Be That Readers Were Relegated Because They Considered Themselves Far Above Society, And So The Metaphor Of The Ivory Tower Developed. Now There's Still This Idea That The Reader Doesn't Take Part In The Social Game And In Politics, The Res Publica, But For Other Reasons: He Doesn't Do It Because He's Not Making Any Money.

The Love Of Libraries, Like Most Loves, Must Be Learned.