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A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.

Libraries can take the place of God.

The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.

In ancient Greece, Socrates reportedly didn't fancy a literate society. He felt that people would lose the capacity to think for themselves, simply adopting the perspective of a handy written opinion, and that they would cease to remember what could be written down.

Like the philosopher, the author views his task as one of establishing a clear connection between life and history, and of making the past bear fruit for the present and future.

One of the most constant and sustaining truths of my life has been this: I love the library.

I remember the first book I bought, when I was about 11... Dad said, 'What have you got that for? What are libraries for?'

Long before we created libraries, or even books, poetry was the way we humans remembered who we were, a primary means of documenting and contemplating our lives.

The fondest dream of the information age is to create an archive of all knowledge. You might call it the Alexandrian fantasy, after the great library founded by Ptolemy I in 286 BC.