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I have relied on the library to provide the research materials for five books and uncountable magazine articles. But what has always impressed me most forcefully is the institution's connection to the everyday life of New Yorkers, from giggling teenagers to the very old...From its beginnings, this (library) building has served both as an instigator and a mirror of social change. The Library is one of the last bastions of respect for those who try to carry on...independent scholarship...As a writer, I can never get over the sense of being absolutely lucky to be able to get my hands (literally) on so many books.Writer Susan Jacoby Going to the library builds a kid's imagination. Books help them discover themselves and the world. Baltimore Oriole All-Star shortstop Mike Bordick Teenagers can discover the pleasures of reading and gain the power of knowledge by going to libraries. With that power, they will be invincible. NASCAR driver Ward Burton, winner of the Daytona 500. There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration. Andrew Carnegie We must not think of learning as only what happens in schools. It is an extended part of life. The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system. Author David McCullough What is more important in a library than anything else-than everything else-is the fact that it exists. Poet Archibald MacLeish Getting my library card was like citizenship; it was like American citizenship. Oprah Winfrey "When I was a kid and the other kids were home watching "Leave it to Beaver," my father and step-mother were marching me off to the library." Oprah Winfrey What in the world would we do without our libraries? Katharine Hepburn The richest person in the world - in fact. All the riches in the world - couldn't provide you with anything like the endless, incredible loot available at your local library. You can measure the awareness, the breadth and the wisdom of a civilization, a nation, a people by the priority given to preserving these repositories of all that we are, all that we were, or will be. Publisher Malcolm Forbes When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully-the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer. Musician Keith Richards What libraries give you is all three tenses -- the past tense -- the present tense in which we live and the future that we can only imagine. These places have teachers who are living and dead and we are lucky to have them. If I sit here and read Artistole, he is speaking to me across a thousand years -- more than a thousand years. That sense that I am in the company of the great greatest people who ever lived is a humbling experience but a liberating experience. Columnist Pete Hamill, New York Daily News A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life. Author Norman Cousins The part of my education that has had the deepest influence wasn't any particular essay or even a specific class, it was how I was able to apply everything I learned in the library to certain situations in my life. . . The library takes me away from my everyday life and allows me to see other places and learn to understand other people unlike myself. Musician Gloria Estefan As a child, I loved to read books. The library was a window to the world, a pathway to worlds and people far from my neighborhood in Philadelphia. And even today, as I travel around the world, I often visit places I used to dream about because of the books I'd read. The library made a difference in my life. Broadcaster Ed Bradley The free access to information is not a privilege, but a necessity for any free society. One of my favorite things to do as a young man was wander through the stacks of my hometown library. I'd just browse until I found something interesting. Libraries have definitely changed my life. Actor Edward Asner When I was young, we couldn't afford much. But, my library card was my key to the world. Actor John Goodman We all love to hear a good story. We save our stories in books. We save our books in libraries. Libraries are the storyhouses full of all those stories and secrets. Actor Kathy Bates I am here because libraries and museums are singular and important institutions with unique contributions to make to our nation. But more importantly, I am here as an advocate for children and families, for healthy communities, for economic development, for scholars and researchers, for individuals who seek educational and informational resources throughout their lives. U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services Director Robert Martin The day I discovered that one could go to the public library and take out books was one of the happiest of my life. Columnist Liz Smith There are ways to recover one's perspective. You can wait for one of those periodic crisis that summon the best of the decent men and women who toil at virtually every level of government. Or you can go to your local public library, where the democratic ideals of liberty, equality, and free inquiry are still burnished by daily use. Columnist Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press I really didn't realize the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous group. They are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them. You know, they've had their budgets cut. They're paid nothing. Books are falling apart. The libraries are just like the ass end of everything, right? Filmmaker and author Michael Moore I think the New York Public Library is so, so amazing. It's literally the coolest place - It's good shelter from the sun and it's the most beautiful building. It's really, really fun.Actress Natalie Portman Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation. Broadcaster Walter Cronkite As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.Author Erma Bombeck Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually. Author James A. Michener When I was a child in the Navy during World War II, I was perennially grateful to the armed services libraries for having on hand a good supply of those pocket-books, which were so common in that period. I must have read a couple hundred of them, and theydid a lot to save my sanity." Author James A. Michener Librarians have always been among the most thoughtful and helpful people. They are teachers without a classroom. No libraries, no progress. Broadcaster Willard Scott Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for the better. Author Sidney Sheldon The library is not only a diary of the human race, but marks an act of faith in the continuity of humanity. President, Carnegie Corporation Vartan Gregorian The library is our house of intellect, our transcendental university, with one exception: no one graduates from a library. No one possibly can, and no one should. President, Carnegie Corporation Vartan Gregorian We are not mere gatekeepers and doorkeepers of humanity's heritage. We also must protect its dissemination. We must beware of all censorship in whatever form it comes, because to censor, to tamper with truth, to tamper with our memory, is to commit a historical sin. We, as librarians, have a major duty that we must all share all over the world, in order not to allow anybody to control, to twist, and most important of all, to manipulate our human will and through it our free institutions. President, Carnegie Corporation Vartan Gregorian The library is central to our free society. It is a critical element in the free exchange of information at the heart of our democracy. President, Carnegie Corporation Vartan Gregorian Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission. No committee decides who may enter, no crisis of body or spirit must accompany the entrant. No tuition is charged, no oath sworn, no visa demanded. Of the monuments humans build for themselves, very few say "touch me, use me, my hush is not indifference, my space is not barrier. If I inspire awe, it is because I am in awe of you and the possibilities that dwell in you. Author Toni Morrison I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved. Author Barbara Kingsolver Here was one place where I could find out who I was and what I was going to become. And that was the public library. Author Jerzy Kosinski When I got my library card, that's when my life began. Author Rita Mae Brown A library book...is not, then, an article of mere consumption, but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, is their only capital. Thomas Jefferson Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there. Clare Booth Luce Throughout my formal education I spent many, many hours in public and school libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were. The current definitive answer to almost any question can be found within the four walls of most libraries. Tennis Champion- Human Rights Activist Arthur Ashe "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." ~~Samuel Johnson Library Here is where people One frequently finds Lower their voices And raise their mind ~~Richard Armour 05/02 I have just spent some wonderful time on the IFLA website reading a fabulous collection of quotes about libraries. If you have some down time, hop over! < <http://www.ifla.org/I/humour/author.htm> http://www.ifla.org/I/humour/author.htm> <http://www.ifla.org/I/humour/author.htm> http://www.ifla.org/I/humour/author.htm "Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." - Charles W. Eliot "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own.--Charles Scribner, Jr. "A book is like a garden carried in your pocket." Chinese Proverb "The Librarian, whose job is to heal ignorance, to keep life safe for poetry and to put knowledge smack dab in the middle of the American way." From The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9-20-03 "A book not opened is but a block of paper." Chinese saying To learn to read is basic, To LOVE to read is the plus! "Show me a computer expert that gives a damn, and I'll show you a librarian." Patricia Wilson Berger "My guess is about 300 years until computers are as good as, say, your local reference library in doing [re]search," says [Google's director of technology] Craig Silverstein [on the CBS News Sunday Morning on March 28, 2004]. "But we can make slow and steady progress, and maybe one day we'll get there." Knowledge is free at the library. Just bring your own container. - Unknown "I really didn't realize the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous group. They are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them." Michael Moore Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. --Harper Lee 12-12-04 It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it. - Oscar Wilde 12-15-04 Willow: Gee, maybe we should help Giles. He might be in danger. Xander: Nah, he's like Super Librarian. People forget, Willow, that knowledge is the ultimate weapon. --Buffy the Vampire Slayer "The Librarian, whose job is to heal ignorance, to keep life safe for poetry and to put knowledge smack dab in the middle of the American way." From The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9-20-03 Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own.--Charles Scribner, Jr. 12-20-04 Patricia Hamilton Ritchie Elementary New Baltimore, VA phamilton@fcps1.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. 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