Over the years, Brenda Branch, Austin Public Library Director from 1991 to 2017, collected quotations about reading, books, and libraries that inspired her.
A metal sculpture featuring some of those quotations is installed on the east side exterior of the Central Library. It can be seen within the building from Teen Central (Floor 3) and the Reading Room (Floor 4).
The quotations are listed below in alphabetical order by the last name of the person quoted.
A
Addison, Joseph. Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Adler, Mortimer. Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
Alcott, Louisa May. Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again.
Ali, Muhammad. A man that has no imagination has no wings.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. School libraries are the foundations of our culture—not luxuries.
Anderson, M. T. I think it’s imperative that we realize that libraries are important to the life of this nation.
Angelou, Maya. When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature.
Aristotle. The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
Asch, Sholem. I love the place; the magnificent books; I require books as I require air.
Auden, W. H. A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
B
Bacon, Francis. Reading maketh a full man.
Bacon, Francis. Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.
Baggins, Bilbo. Never laugh at live dragons.
Barbieri, Heather. Libraries are places where the imagination begins.
Beaton, M. C. A library is a palace of dreams.
Beecher, Henry Ward. A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.
Beecher, Henry Ward. Books are not men and yet they stay alive.
Birrell, Augustine. Libraries are not made; they grow.
Blume, Judy. A library is where you meet fascinating characters you never forget.
Borges, Jorge Luis. I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Borges, Jorge Luis. The library is unlimited and cyclical.
Bradbury, Ray. Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.
Bradbury, Ray. You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
Bradley, Omar. Set your course by the stars, not the lights of every passing ship.
Branson, Richard. The best way to learn about anything is by doing.
Braun, Lillian Jackson. A library card is the start of a lifelong adventure.
Brilliant, Ashleigh. The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a good library.
Brodsky, Joseph. There are worse things than banning books. One of them is not reading them.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. Reading is important—read between the lines. Don’t swallow everything.
Brougham, Henry P. It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.
Brown, Rita Mae. When I got my library card, that’s when my life began.
Buchwald, Emilie. Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.
Budd, John F. The dissemination of knowledge is one of the cornerstones of civilization.
Burke, Edmund. Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Bush, Laura. Once a child learns to use a library, the doors to learning are always open.
Butler, Lynn. Reading is a window to the world.
C
Calvin: I’m a man of few words. / Hobbes: If you read more, you might have a larger vocabulary.
Card, Orson Scott. A library is the first step of a thousand journeys, portal to a thousand worlds.
Carnegie, Andrew. There is not such a cradle of democracy on earth as the Free Public Library this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.
Chase, Mary Ellen. There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.
Chinese Proverb. A book is a garden carried in the pocket.
Choate, Rufus. Happy is he who has laid up in his youth and held fast in all fortune a genuine and passionate love of reading.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Force yourself to reflect on what you read, paragraph by paragraph.
Confucius. No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.
Confucius. Words are the voice of the heart.
Cooley, Mason. Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.
Cormier, Robert. I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.
Cornish, Edward. Libraries enable the past to talk to the future.
Cronkite, Walter. Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.
Cumming, R. D. A good book has no ending.
Curtis, George William. Books are the burning lamps of ever accumulated wisdom.
D
d’Israeli, Isaac. The delights of reading impart the vivacity of youth even to old age.
Dahl, Roald. If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books.
Dawson, George Mercer. A great library contains the diary of the human race.
De Saint-Exupery, Antoine. It is only with the heart that one sees clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.
Descartes. The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries.
Dickinson, Emily. The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul—BOOKS.
Dickinson, Emily. There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away / Nor any Coursers like Page / Of prancing Poetry…
Dillard, Annie. Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the hope of meaningfulness, so we may feel again their majesty and power.
Dirda, Michael. The world is a library of strange and wonderful books, and sometimes we need to go prowling through the stacks.
Disney, Walt. There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island.
Domínguez, Carlos María. To build up a library is to create a life. It’s never just a random collection of books.
Douglass, Frederick. Once you learn to read you will be forever free.
Dudley, Charles. Nothing is worth reading that does not require an alert mind.
Dyer, William. Libraries are the wardrobes of literature, whence men, properly informed may bring forth something for ornament, much for curiosity, and more for use.
E
Eagan, J. W. Never judge a book by its movie.
Eco, Umberto. I love the smell of book ink in the morning.
Ehlert, Lois. A library is where ideas sleep between covers, waiting for you to discover them.
Einstein, Albert. If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.
Einstein, Albert. Logic will get you from A to B, but imagination will get you everywhere.
Einstein, Albert. The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.
Eliot, T. S. The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. A man is known by the books he reads.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
Evershed, Jane. To read is to empower / To empower is to write / To write is to influence / To influence is to change / To change is to live.
F
Flaubert, Gustave. Read in order to live.
Ford, Henry. Vision without execution is just hallucination.
Forward, Toby. Civilized nations build libraries; lands that have lost their souls close them down.
Franklin, Benjamin. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
Freveletti, Jamie. Libraries are where dreams begin.
Fry, Stephen. An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.
Fuller, Margaret. Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.
Fuller, Thomas. A book that is shut is but a block
G
Gaiman, Neil. Libraries are our friends.
Gandhi. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Golkin, Peter. My two favorite things in life are libraries and bicycles. They both move people forward without wasting anything.
Grandpa in Princess Bride. When I was your age, television was called books.
Greer, Germaine. Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark… In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.
Griggs, Sutton Elbert. It often requires more courage to read some books than it does to fight a battle.
H
Ha-Levi, Judah. My pen is my harp and my lyre; my library is my garden and my orchard.
Hamilton, Kiki. Libraries hold the keys to the universe.
Hayakawa, S.I. It is not true we only have one life to live. If we can read, we can live as many lives and as many kinds of lives as we want.
Hazlitt, William. Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets to our own.
Helm, Thomas. My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter.
Hemingway, Ernest. There is no friend as loyal as a book.
Hendrix, Jimi. Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
Hepburn, Katherine. What in the world would we do without our libraries?
Higgins, Kristan. Libraries are the doorway to a thousand worlds.
Hoffman, Alice. Books may well be the only true magic.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echos of our hearts.
Houston, Drew. Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.
Hubbard, Jennifer R. Libraries are the hearts of our communities.
I
Inscription on Berlin Royal Library. Nutrimentum spiritus.
J
Jackson, Holbrock. Your library is your portrait.
James, Janice. I’ve traveled the world twice over / Met the famous saints and sinners / Poets and artists, kings and queens / Old stars and hopeful beginners / I’ve been where no-one’s been before / Learned secrets from writers and cooks / All with one library ticket / To the wonderful world of books.
Johnson, Lady Bird. Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.
Johnson, Lyndon Baines. A book is the most effective weapon against intolerance and ignorance.
K
Kafka, Franz. A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.
Kafka, Franz. Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.
Kanin, Garson. Books are men of higher stature, and the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.
Keller, Helen. Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood
Kennedy, John F. If we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries…
Kermit the Frog. Life’s a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.
Kieran, John. I am a part of all I have read.
King, B.B. The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.
King, Jr., Martin Luther. Intelligence plus character—that is the true goal of education.
King, Stephen. Books are uniquely portable magic.
Klinger, Shula. A library may look like a single building, but please don’t be misled by the walls. It’s a single link in an enormous chain. It’s a single being in a gigantic ecosystem of words and thoughts and ideas.
Kret, Itzah. I live in a world of fantasy/So keep your reality away from me./I see what I want/I want what I see/And that is all okay with me.
L
Landford, John Alfred. No possession can surpass, or even equal a good library, to the lover of books. Here are treasured up for his daily use and delectation, riches which increase by being consumed, and pleasures that never cloy.
Landor, Walter Savage. Nothing is pleasanter than exploring a library.
Landor, Walter Savage. What is reading but silent conversation?
Lebowitz, Fran. Think before you speak. Read before you think.
Lee, Harper. The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.
LeGuin, Ursula. The unread story is not a story; it is little balck marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live; a live thing, a story.
Lennon, John. Learn to swim. And once you’ve learned to swim, swim.
Leveen, Steve. A library is a fueling station for the mind.
Lewis, C. S. We read to know we are not alone.
Lincoln, Abraham. My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.
Lobel, Arnold. Books to the ceiling/Books to the sky/My pile of books is a mile high./How I love them! How I need them!/I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them.
Lodge, Thomas. Men, in teaching others, learn themselves.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The love of learning/The sequestered nooks/And all the sweet serenity of books.
Lubbock, John. We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.
M
Madison, James. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.
Malreaux, Andre. An art book is a museum without walls.
Mandela, Nelson. The power of imagination created the illusion that my vision went much farther than the naked eye could actually see.
Marley, Bob. Don’t ain the world and lose your soul. Wisdom is better than silver or gold.
Martin, George R. R. A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.
Marx, Groucho. Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
Meltzer, Brad. Sharing education, sharing a book—that’s what changes the world.
Meredith, Owen. It is books that bear from age to age the intellectual wealth of the world.
Metz, Holly. Libarians are information mountaineers, guiding us to high peaks, encouraging us to keep our gaze skyward.
Michelangelo. I am still learning.
Miller, Henry. We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.
Moats, Louisa. Teaching reading IS rocket science.
Morley, Christopher. Read every day, something no one else is reading. Think every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
N
Naisbitt, John. We are drowning in information, but starved for knowledge.
O
Oates, Joyce Carol. Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.
Olmos, Edward James. Education is a vaccine for violence.
Orlean, Susan. Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.
P
Patterson, Katherine. A great novel is a kind of conversion experience. We come away from it changed.
Picasso, Pablo. Everything you can imagine is real.
Pierce, Tamora. A library is a gateway to others’ minds, hearts, and lives.
Plank, Max. it is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.
Plato. Books are immortal sons defying their sires.
Proust, Marcel. The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Pulsifer, Catherine. Books can be a source of relaxation; they can take you to places that may never have been otherwise.
Q
Quixote, Don. Too much sanity may be madness and maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.
R
Reed, Ishmael. One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind.
Rice, Luanne. I was born in a library in the fiction stacks.
Richards, Keith. The Public Library is the great equalizer.
Rivers, Earl. It is a delight to read ancient authors for recreation and passing of time.
Robinson, Ken. If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.
Rochefoucauld, François de la. Wisdom is to the mind what health is to the body.
Rochman, Hazel. Reading takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.
Rohn, Jim. Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book.
Rosenblatt, Roger. A library should be like a pair of open arms.
Rowan, Carl. The library is the temple of learning and learning has liberated more people than all the wars of history.
Rowling, J. K. I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.
Ryan, Pam Munoz. I think the most inspiring thing to me about libraries is that they serve all the people.
S
Saavedra, Miguel de Cervantes. There is no book so bad that it does not have something good in it.
Sagan, Carl. To read is to voyage through time.
Sagan, Carl. Writing is the best of human inventions binding together people, citizens of distant epochs who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time.
Saint-Exupery, Antoine de. The only things you learn are the things you tame.
Samuel, Herbert. A library is thought in cold storage.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. Any book which is at all important should be re-read immediately.
Schulz, Charles. I fall in love with any girl who smells of library paste.
Scott, Sir Walter. Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasure, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime that ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.
Scottoline, Lisa. A library is the home for the imagination.
Secondat, Charles de. I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.
Sevigne, Marie de. When I step into this library I cannot understand why I ever step out of it.
Shakespeare, William. Come, and take choice of all my library and so beguile thy sorrow.
Shakespeare, William. My library was dukedom large enough.
Sierra, Archer. The power of education and daydreaming creates the innovators of the future.
Skinner, B. F. We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
Smith Alexander. I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.
Smith, Alexander. Books are a finer world within the world.
Smith, Logan Pearsall. People say that life is the thing, but I prefer books.
Socrates. Know thyself.
Socrates. Prefer knowledge to wealth, for one is transitory, the other perpetual.
Soli, Tatjana. As a child I went to libraries to discover the world. As an adult, I continue to go to them for the inspiration to create worlds of my own.
Styron, William. Reading—the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.
Suess, Dr. The more you read, the more things you will know. The more than your learn, the more places you’ll go.
Sweeney, Paul. You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.
Swift, Jonathan. Books, the children of the brain.
T
Tabor, Mary B. W. One sure window into a person’s soul is his reading list.
Talmud. None is poor save him that lacks knowledge.
Terkel, Studs. All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.
Thoreau, Henry David. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Thoreau, Henry David. Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
Tolkein, J.R.R. Not all those who wander are lost.
Tuchman, Barbara. Books are carriers of civilization.
Tuchman, Barbara. Books are humanity in print.
Tupper, Martin Farquhar. A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.
Twain, Mark. I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.
Twain, Mark. The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read.
U
Unknown. Knowledge is free at the library, just bring your own container.
V
Van Gogh, Vincent. I would rather die from passion than from boredom.
Voltaire. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
Voltaire. The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.
Vossler, Matthew. Libraries are a pillar of liberty; they equalize and transform.
W
Washington, George. I conceive that a knowledge of books is the basis on which all other knowledge rests.
Watterson, Bill. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery—it recharges by running.
Weeks, Linton. In the nonstop tsunami of global information, libraries provide us with floaties and teach us how to swim.
Weil, Simone. I only read what I am hungry for at the moment when I have an appetite for it, and then I do not read, I eat.
Whipple, Edwin P. Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.
White, Sarah Bracey. Libraries showed me the world beyond my limited horizons.
Wilde, Oscar. Everybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.
Williams, Bert. Books had instant replay long before sports.
Wilson, Edmund. No two persons ever read the same book.
Winfrey, Oprah. Turn your wounds into wisdom.
Woolf, Virginia. Anyone who’s worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.
Woolf, Virginia. I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk treasure.
Wright, Barbara. When I enter a library, I feel I’ve come home.
X Y Z
X, Malcolm. The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be alive.
Yelin, Louise. Libraries: cafeterias for food that feeds the mind.