“Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth.”
Work
"The Library at Night - a series of essays on what might call the Platonic idea of a library - reveals some of its author's intellectual range and magpie learning... [It] is an elegant volume, in both its design and its text... Alberto Manguel has brought out a richly enjoyable book, absolutely enthralling for anyone who loves to read and an inspiration for anybody who has ever dreamed of building a library of his or her own." - Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World
Quotes
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Alberto Manguel
Canonical work source
“Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth.”
“It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of...”
“My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices.”
“In any of my pages in any of my books may life a perfect account of my secret experience of the world.”
“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.”
“There is a line of poetry, a sentence in a fable, a word in an essay, by which my existence is justified; find that line, and immortality is assured.”
“Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as...”
“A library is an ever-growing entity; it multiples seemingly unaided, it reproduces itself by purchase, theft, borrowings, gifts, by suggesting gaps through association, by demanding completi...”
“One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.”
“I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days.”
“Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers.”
“Digestion of words as well; I often read aloud to myself in my writing corner in the library, where no one can hear me, for the sake of better savouring the text, so as to make it all the mo...”
“As readers, we have gone from learning a precious craft whose secret was held by a jealous few, to taking for granted a skin that has become subordinate to principles of mindless financial p...”
“I like to imagine that, on the day after my last, my library and I will crumble together, so that even when I am no more I'll still be with my books.”
“Books have long been instruments of the divinatory arts.”
“No one stepping for the first time into a room made of books can know instinctively how to behave, what is expected, what is promised, what is allowed. One may be overcome by horror--at the...”
“If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are not, and cannot be.”
“Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.”
“Unpacking books is a revelatory activity.”
“In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long.”
“Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read.”
“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.”
“In the dark, with the windows lit and the rows of books glittering, the library is a closed space, a universe of self-serving rules that pretend to replace or translate those of the shapeles...”
“From fire, water, the passage of time, neglectful readers, and the hand of the censor, each of my books has escaped to tell me its story.”