As any Beauty and the Beast fan will tell you, there's just no denying the wondrous power of a building with lots of books. I've collected my 10 favorite quotes about libraries to share with you, because they're truly the most magical places on Earth. (Move over, Disneyland.)
As a kid, I spent about as much time in the library as I did at home. My local library was a quiet, well-stocked retreat from other people and the summer heat. It was one place that I could be myself, because the books didn't care if I was a little bit weird. They wanted to be read, and I was there to read them.
Fast forward a decade or two and I still love the library. I'm not alone. Members of my generation — those pesky millennials — are more likely than any other to tap into their local library's services, which means that, while we're killing cruises, golf, wine corks, and diamonds, we're simultaneously saving the best thing about the U.S.: its 119,487 libraries.
You don't need me to tell you how wonderful libraries are, obviously, but maybe you can put one of these quotes to good use in an ~inspirational~ way. Check out the 10 quotes about libraries I've pulled for you below, and share your favorites with me on Twitter!
"When in doubt, go to the library."
— Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
"I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple."
"The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass."
— from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
"He loved libraries. Nowhere else in the world felt so safe and homey. Nowhere else smelled like books and dust and happy solitude quite like a library did."
— from First Kill by Heather Brewer
"Crossing an open area like the reading area was guaranteed to draw every librarian in the building so any hypothetical reader would never get ten steps, let alone all the way to pulling out a chair and sitting down. The reading area was a beautifully crafted trap set by the librarians, but it was too perfect. Even the dumbest book lover — and anyone who would regularly choose to come in contact with books could not be a bright bulb — wouldn't fall for this."
— from Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
"The atmosphere of the place soothed her automatically; the rich lantern lights, the sheer scent of paper and leather, and the fact that everywhere she looked, there were books, books, beautiful books."
— from The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
"Every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, 'The world is quiet here,' as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good."
— from The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket
"Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers."
— from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
"He sat there studiously bent over his work (Bill saw him), which lay in a slant of crisp white winterlight, his face sober and absorbed, knowing that to be a librarian was to come as close as any human being can to sitting in the peak-seat of eternity’s engine."
— from It by Stephen King
