Librarians Quotes

If she can't spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.

~ Beverly Cleary

Librarians hoard the wisdom of humanity. They are the keepers of all knowledge, the guardians at the temples of understanding and devoted protectors of the sanctuary in the midst of uneducated anarchy.

~ Stephen Colbert

Librarians are essential players in the information revolution because they level that field. They enable those without money or education to read and learn the same things as the billionaire and the PhD.

~ Marilyn Johnson

I was just turned last week. I'm a librarian.He stilled, as if I'd just told him I was the inventor of the tube top. I watched a movie about a librarian once. Well, she was a librarian by day, a call girl by--I stopped him with a quick lift of an eyebrow. If you finish that sentence, we cannot be friends.

~ Molly Harper

He checked out his surrounding. More books. A drinking fountain. A poster showing a guy slam-dunking a basketball with one hand and holding a book in the other, urging kids to READ! Weird, thought Steve. How can he even see the hoop?...You see, Steven, Librarians are the most elite, best trained secret force in the United States of America. Probably in the world.No way.Yes way.What about the FBI?Featherweights.The CIA?Mackintosh snorted. Don't make me laugh. Those guys can't even dunk a basketball andd read a book at the same time.

~ Mac Barnett

Rule number one: Don't fuck with librarians.

~ Neil Gaiman

Don't mark up the Library's copy, you fool! Librarians are Unprankable. They'll track you down! They have skills!

~ Charles Ogden

Adult librarians are like lazy bakers: their patrons want a jelly doughnut, so they give them a jelly doughnut. Children’s librarians are ambitious bakers: 'You like the jelly doughnut? I’ll get you a jelly doughnut. But you should try my cruller, too. My cruller is gonna blow your mind, kid.

~ John Green

The old man was peering intently at the shelves. 'I'll have to admit that he's a very competent scholar.'Isn't he just a librarian?' Garion asked, 'somebody who looks after books?'That's where all the rest of scholarship starts, Garion. All the books in the world won't help you if they're just piled up in a heap.

~ David Eddings

...a book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements, clumsy hands. If for a hundred and a hundred years everyone had been able freely to handle our codices, the majority of them would no longer exist. So the librarian protects them not only against mankind but also against nature, and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion, the enemy of truth.

~ Umberto Eco

To all my librarian friends, champions of books, true magicians in the House of Life. Without you, this writer would be lost in the Dust.

~ Rick Riordan

...I am still librarian in your house, for I never was dismissed, and never gave up the office. Now I am librarian here as well.''But you have just told me you were sexton here!''So I am. It is much the same profession. Except you are a true sexton, books are but dead bodies to you, and a library nothing but a catacomb!

~ George Macdonald

A library bears similar qualities to a hospital. Librarians are like doctors, books the prescriptions.

~ Trudy Wallis

One can never had too many librarian friends.

~ Jennifer Chiaverini

I stood in the corridor feeling like an angry pebble. It didn't matter where I rolled off to. The mystery and treachery of the world continued, and a pebble like me could get angry over anything it liked and it wouldn't do any good. Librarians not reading, I thought to myself. Sometimes I don't know why I bother.

~ Lemony Snicket

She is a small woman with a face like a book mite, she is not without opinions.

~ Lisa Koger

The better the school library, the higher the reading scores.

~ Stephen D. Krashen

The Librarians control the information... They control what gets read, what gets seen, and what gets learned. Because of that they have power.

~ Brandon Sanderson

Creating a world within the imagination one day at a time through words and colors.

~ Peggy A. Borel

Time has become quiet flexible inside the library. (This is true of most places with interesting books. Sit down to read for twenty minutes, and suddenly it's dark, with no clue as to where the hours have gone.)

~ Ellen Klages

It is possible that librarians will be robots, controlled by Master Minds having mastery of a master computer at the Library of Congress.Or there will be no libraries and librarians, flesh-and-blood or otherwise. The onetime library patron will press a button and turn a dial on his TV, whereupon the requested book, in the desired language, will appear on the screen, the pages turning at the designated speed.

~ Richard Armour

[W]hat people truly desire is access to the knowledge and information that ultimately lead to a better life--the collected wisdom of the ages found only in one place: a well-stocked library.To the teachers and librarians and everyone on the frontlines of bringing literature to young people: I know you have days when your work seems humdrum, or unappreciated, or embattled, and I hope on those days you will take a few moments to reflect with pride on the importance of the work you do. For it is indeed of enormous importance--the job of safeguarding and sharing the world's wisdom.All of you are engaged in the vital task of providing the next generation with the tools they will need to save the world. The ability to read and access information isn't just a power--it's a superpower. Which means that you aren't just heroes--you're superheroes. I believe that with all my heart.

~ Linda Sue Park

Forgive, I hope you won't be upset, but when I was a boy I used to look up and see you behind your desk, so near but far away, and, how can I say this, I used to think that you were Mrs. God, and that the library was a whole world, and that no matter what part of the world or what people or thing I wanted to see and read, you'd find and give it to me.

~ Ray Bradbury

...because there's a secret order. The books, you can't place them random. The other day I put Cervantes next to Tolstoj.And I thought, if close to Anna Karenina we have Don Quixote, sure the latter will do his best to save her.

~ Ettore Scola

All Librarians are Secret Masters of Severe Magic. Goes with the territory.

~ Catherynne M. Valente

He would not object, he said, to accepting a post as a librarian. But as Cecilia was unable to imagine that her father or her brother would feel any marked degree of satisfaction in giving her in marriage to a librarian, this very handsome concession on Mr Fawnhope's part merely added to her despondency.

~ Georgette Heyer

Some are born to greatness; some achieve greatness; some have greatness thrust upon them.' It is in this way that the librarian has become a censor of literature... books that distinctly commend what is wrong, that teach how to sin and how pleasant sin is, sometimes with and sometimes without the added sauce of impropriety, are increasingly popular, tempting to the author to imitate them, the publishers to produce, the bookseller to exploit. Thank heaven they do not tempt the librarian.

~ Arthur E. Bostwick

An even more pointed example of the the power of the silence tabu in libraries occurred in Duluth in 1981. The police were pursuing a fugitive from justice who ran into the public library. Uniformed police surrounded the building, and the library director was notified that only unobtrusive plainclothesmen were entering the building. Their instructions: “When you find him, overpower him. Quietly.” It was done, and only a few people in the crowded building saw a handcuffed man being ushered past the checkout counter. “See,” one librarian remarked quietly to an amazed person, “that’s what happens when you don’t pay your book fines.

~ Ray B. Browne

Books are only half our job , the other half is human nature.

~ Mary Virginia Provines

We have the librarians on our side. We have *justice* on our side.

~ Polly Shulman

Librarians save lives: by handing the right book, at the right time, to a kid in need

~ Judy Blume

Thanks for being the kind of person who likes to pick up a book. That's a genuinely great thing. I met a librarian recently who said she doesn't read because books are her job and when she goes home, she just wants to switch off. I think we can agree that that's creepy as hell.

~ Max Barry

I have always thought that librarians are a little bit like doctors, travel agents and professors all rolled into one. We all know that a great story can lift spirits, take you anywhere in the world you want to go and in any time period to boot, and the lessons you learn from a good book can buoy your own convictions and even change your life.

~ Dorothea Benton Frank

[I]n spite of her work as a reference librarian, she discovered that life isn't about knowing all the answers. The best we can do is make peace with our questions, learn who we are, know our strengths, and do the best we can with the gifts we've been given while we're here.

~ Kate Messner

Librarians consider free access to information the foundation of democracy.

~ Marilyn Johnson

That night, Hallie was relieved when Linda Soares, the town librarian who'd spent years trying to impress Nick with her low-cut shirts and book recommendations, joined them for dinner.

~ Patry Francis

Librarians are trained to be polite, patient, and helpful, no matter who stands across the reference desk.The most important thing is that we look them in the eye and take them seriously. Our work demands that we become dreamers, holding onto hope that our society can be better, that we affirm for our patrons that they are still part of this society, no matter how marginalized they have become. I was raised on the notion that the public library is a civilizing institution. And if our work calms someone's demons or teaches someone else how to treat the mentally ill with respect, then I am proud to be part of the process.

~ Robert Dawson

On a good day, my style is librarian chic. On a bad day, it's frumpy mother.

~ Cassandra Page

To be a librarian is not to be neutral, or passive, or waiting for a question. It is to be a radical positive change agent within your community.

~ R. David Lankes

Twas a cold Yuletide evening, and I wandered the stacks, shelving multiple titles that the patrons brought back. We toiled overtime at our library here, 'cause the powers that be cut our staffing this year.

~ David Davis