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The shelves of books we haven't written, like those of books we haven't read, stretches out into the darkness of the universal library's farthest space. We are always at the beginning of the beginning of the letter A.

Alberto Manguel

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Alberto Manguel
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: March 13
Editor
Translator
Writer
Buenos Ayres
Alberto Manguel
Like
Beginning
Stretches
Darkness
Shelves
Books
Letter
Written
Library
Space
Letters
Read
Havens
Book
Haven
Always
Universal
Farthest

More quotes by Alberto Manguel

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I can understand that there are those who can think and imagine the world without words, but I think that once you find the words that name your experience, then suddenly that experience becomes grounded, and you can use it and you can try to understand it.
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One can transform a place by reading in it.
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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.
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A book brings its own history to the reader.
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For Borges, the core of reality lay in books reading books, writing books, talking about books. In a visceral way, he was conscious of continuing a dialogue begun thousands of years before and which he believed would never end.
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As centuries of dictators have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it has been acquired, the second-best recourse is to limit its scope.
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At different times and in different places I have come to expect certain books to look a certain way, and, as in all fashions, these changing features fix a precise quality onto a book's definition. I judge a book by its cover I judge a book by its shape.
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Books read in a public library never have the same flavour as books read in the attic or the kitchen.
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Unpacking books is a revelatory activity.
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The readers who commited suicide after reading 'Werther' were not ideal but merely sentimental readers.
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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.
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One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.
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Not until I came to Canada did I realize that snow was a four-letter word.
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Existing libraries, in their very being, seem to question the authority of those in power.
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A society can exist - many do exist - without writing, but no society can exist without reading.
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I enjoyed learning the poems, but I didn't understand of what use they might possibly be. ‘They'll keep you company on the day you have no books to read,' my teacher said.
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Darkness promotes speech.
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I never talked to anyone about my reading the need to share came afterwords.
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Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.
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I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.
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