"Reading is at the center of our..." - Quote by Ray Bradbury

“Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.”

“People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.”

“Libraries are the center of our lives. There's no use going to a university if you don't live at the library.”

“Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right.”

“There are some people who read too much: The bibliobibuli.”

“Reading [poetry], you know, is rather like opening the door to a horde of rebels who swarm out attacking one in twenty places at once - hit, roused, scraped, bared, swung through the air, so that life seems to flash by; then again blinded, knocked on the head - all of which are agreeable sensations for a reader (since nothing is more dismal than to open the door and get no response).”

“Without the library, you have no civilization.”

“I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

“More than a building that houses books and data, the library represents a window to a larger world, the place where we've always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward and the human story forward.”