And while we're on the subject of ducks, which we plainly are, the story, 'The Ugly Duckling' ought be banned as the central character wasn't a duckling or he wouldn't have grown up into a swan. He was a cygnet.

My fingers positively itched to drift at length along their spines, to arrive at one whose lure I could not pass, to pluck it down, to inch it open, then to close my eyes and inhale the soul-sparking scent of old and literate dust.

Katrai grāmatai ir dvēsele - tā cilvēka dvēsele, kurš grāmatu sarakstījis, un to cilvēku dvēseles, kuri grāmatu lasījuši un kopā ar to sapņojuši.

Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book."(Acceptance speech, National Book Award 2010 (Nonfiction), November 17, 2010)

But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see... I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

We'll always need printed books that don't mutate the way digital books do; we'll always need places to display books, auditoriums for book talks, circles for story time; we'll always need brick-and-mortar libraries.

This isn't a book. This isn't a paranormal fantasy or whatever the hell it is you read. There is no set plot or clear idea of where any of this is going. The enemies aren't obvious. There are no guaranteed happy endings.

This must be what an addict feels like, I think, trying to fight the pull of one last, quick read. My fingers itch toward the binding, and finally, with a sigh of regret, I just grab the book and open it, hungrily reading the story.

What was a book? Not just ink and fiber and stitchery: a series of processes. To a wizard, it was not a static object--but a human thought caught and bound, made concrete through sacred technology. Magic, then, and a deep form of it.

We are what we love to read, and when we admit to loving a book, we admit that the book represents some aspect of ourselves truly, whether it is that we are suckers for romance or pining for adventure or secretly fascinated by crime.

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.

Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.

Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're complete, not leading anywhere.

Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.