Post 23/2023 Sunday 25 June . . . I like this quote from Oscar Wilde (Irish poet,1854-1900): “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written, or badly written. (The Pictures of Dorian Gray, 1891, preface). To paraphrase: let the bookmarks fall where they may. Let it be known that what is acceptable to one and unacceptable to another exist together.

I’ve selected quotations to make up the lion’s share of this week’s blog. The quotes are from Irish, Scottish and English writers and from a UK Facebook page, Awesome Librarians, http://www.awesomelibrarians.com. Of course, interspersed with quotes are photos of the week from northern Indiana, USA.

Books at your service

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894):

Go, little book, and wish to all

Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall,

A bin of wine, a spice of wit,

A house with lawns enclosing it,

A living river by the door, A nightingale in the sycamore!

bk1.i. Envoy

Three quotes from John Ruskin (1819-1900): “All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hour, and the books of all time.”

“What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?”

We call ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish enough to thumb each other’s books out of circulating libraries!”

“It’s always better to have too much to read than not enough.” Ann Patchett

“Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you heart and soul.” Awesome Librarians

Dame Rebecca West (1892-1983): “God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.”

Edmund Burke: “Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”

Charlie Brown: “Reading is an adventure that never ends.”

Long live libraries

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), in Five Orange Pips: “A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.”

I’ve spent part of the week sorting through books, some of which have been stashed in boxes for a time. I’ve done that off and on for years and will continue to thin the batch for a while yet.

I’m glad that among the keepers I can expect pleasure and value beyond expectation. Pleasure and value, maybe, as told in the story of two caterpillars who were crawling across the grass when a butterfly flew over them. They looked up. One nudged the other and said: “You couldn’t get me up in one of those things for a million dollars!”

Anonymous: “A library is a hospital for the mind.”

From the venerable writer E.B. White: “A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people–people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.”

Thank God for books and libraries that lend and defend them.

KEEP CALM AND BOOK ON

-John