And if you want to fight an old man who wants to drag the Great Library into the past, appoint a young woman who looks to the future.
But the past never leaves us. It’s in every breath, every cell, every second. I know that now.
I’m as good a Catholic as you,” Jess said. “I just don’t hold with making the world into copies of what I like.
To all those who face change without fear. Go forward. To the ever-transforming glory of the public library, without which we would all be diminished. No one with a book is ever alone, even in the darkest moments. We are all book lovers. And we all chase the Great Library of Alexandria, one book at a time.
Books had become a symbol of trust and libraries places of peace and stability. In all the chaos of the world that counted people as different levels of worthy, the Library served all equally. All genders, races, levels of ability. It was the one place they could all be safe, p195.
But the Library still held everything he’d ever wanted, too. All the knowledge in the world, right at his fingertips.
Now, whom are we here to conspire against?’ ‘Poetry,’ I said. ‘Namely, Romeo’s poetry.’ ‘Is it that bad?
Books spoke mind to mind, soul to soul across the abyss of time and distance.
With some enemies, it’s safer to let them destroy themselves.
Not all knowledge is books. Those out there, they’re history is stone. Men carved them. Men sweated in this sun to put them there, to make their city more beautiful. Who are you to say what’s worthy for men to see today, or tomorrow?
He loped off down the hall, and she felt a pure burst of fury. Boys. Why were they always such dumbasses?
As Jess watched in numb horror, the man tore a page from the book and stuffed it into his mouth.
Iced tea, in the South, is the hallmark of hospitality.
Kisses could lie as well as words.
Because when next we meet in your Christian heaven or my pagan afterlife, or some shadowy, hidden corner where those two may touch, I want to hear that you lived a long and happy life after me. That you did as you liked, and loved as you liked, and left the world shattered and empty in your wake.
I’m glad I’ve escaped a hell I had hardly even recognized when I was burning in it.
But I’ve kept them safe from the wolves, at least: the most basic and important job of a parent, to keep her offspring from being eaten by predators. Even the ones I can’t see.
You call us book lovers, and it’s true. We are. And so are you, at heart. You believe in the power of them to change the world.
Pharaoh has also heard your words regarding the unaccompanied admission of females to this sacred space of the Serapeum, and in his divine wisdom refuses this argument, for women must be instructed by the more developed minds of men to ensure they do not wrongly interpret the riches that the Library offers.
And knowledge is the purest form of power.” letter by Thomas Paine, p47.