Mark Twain

Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.

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Open Book's Monologue Part 5: Welcome To The Library!

Welcome to the library! come one come all
Welcome to the library! come with your brethren on this wall
Welcome to the library! come all you books tattered or new
Welcome to the library! come tired and overdue

Yes welcome to the library the place where you're most mundane
Yes welcome to the library the place where you're to endure most pain
Yes welcome to the library where you'll sit unwanted
Yes welcome to the library where you'll sit haunted
Yes welcome to the library where everyone's just like you
Yes welcome to the library where we're all books too!
Yes welcome to the library where you can take comfort
Yes welcome to the library where In the fact you're no longer unique
Yes welcome to the library You're just pen marks ink

Departing the library? I think not, even if you get out we'll bring you back
Departing the library? Here you rot, but we'll dust you to ease your passing
Departing the library? Don't make me laugh, here you're black and white
Departing the library? Nobody argues on your behalf, look more amassing

Welcome to the library! A place of keeping and safety
Welcome to the library! Take your place you'll like it, just wait and see
Welcome to the library! New books don't mind the old they're disillusioned
Welcome to the library! You've sold your soul... but it's too late for you

so WELCOME

poem by David KnoxReport problemRelated quotes
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Books in a large university library system: 2,000,000. Books in an average large city library: 10,000. Average number of books in a chain bookstore: 30,000. Books in an average neighborhood branch library: 20,000.

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Living wild species are like a library of books still unread. Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books.

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However, I survived and started to read all chemistry books that I could get a hand on, first some 19th century books from our home library that did not provide much reliable information, and then I emptied the rather extensive city library.

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The Silence of the Library

the silence of a library
it is the weight of knowledge
on the axis of the mind
waiting to swing into action

the silence of the library
each brain negotiates a path
through the written words where
the tjhoughts of great men flow

the silence of the library
a section of the books
that has gathered dust waits
for a life to be put into them

poem by John Tiong ChunghooReport problemRelated quotes
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Joseph Fiennes

I've got a vendetta to destroy the Net, to make everyone go to the library. I love the organic thing of pen and paper, ink on canvas. I love going down to the library, the feel and smell of books.

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Hoarder Or Collector (Fun Poem 101)

Some of us are hoarders
and we don’t know where to stop.
We say we are collectors,
of rubbish maybe.
For a long time I have loved books
and collected every waif and stray.
People gave them to me by the dozen
and I never turned them away.
My collecting went so mad
I have now ten thousand or more
within my library.
Enough is enough I would say,
but still more arrived.
Now I don’t live in a house anymore,
as it has become a library.
There are books in every room
and not just one or two,
but dozens and dozens of them.
Everywhere you go;
there are books here and there.
Now I must down size
and my problem is
which ones do I let go,
and then I think
I might want to read a couple of them.
I am confused at what to do.
I know if I don’t do it soon
we won’t be able to
even get into the loo!

19 April 2009

Author’s note:
Loo is a word we use instead of saying Toilet. And, yes, I have that many books and I do have to get rid of some.
DVH

poem by David HarrisReport problemRelated quotes
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Thomas Jefferson

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

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Careful. You're In the Library!

All this talk about who ain't did what!
And who was suppose to do that,
And do it without getting fat,
On wide spreading butts.
All this talk about who ain't did what!
Ain't said 'sssssshhhh...'

'Careful.
You're in the library! '

I'm trying to keep my voice down,
But you all have too much information...
Researched that I've found.
And it makes me pissed and angry.
How can you keep calm?
You should be angry too!
And far more alarmed.

All this talk about who ain't did what!
And who was suppose to do that,
And do it without getting fat,
On wide spreading butts.
All this talk about who ain't did what!
Ain't said 'sssssshhhh...'

'Careful.
You're in the library! '

Is this whisper good enough for you.
See how my teeth grit.
As I move my lips?

See how I make my eyes enlarge?
See how I...

'Careful.
You're in the library!
And when you are inside here...
I am in charge.
Ssssshhh.
Or get out!
And...
Don't think of taking those books,
Before you check them.'

poem by Lawrence S. PertillarReport problemRelated quotes
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It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

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I Know I Have A Copy Somewhere

Wherever you may choose to look
You're guaranteed to find a book.
Perhaps a murder mystery.
Anthologies of poetry
Reference books and picture books.
Books on witchcraft and black magic
Tomes on almost any topic.
Some by authors long since dead.
Books which try to look ahead.
Books of every shape and size.
As I have come to realise.
Enough to start a library
Though jumbled up haphazardly.

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e HoggReport problemRelated quotes
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Ray Bradbury

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

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Erica Jong

Books

The universe (which others call the library). . .
-Jorge Luis Borges

Books which are stitched up the center with coarse white thread
Books on the beach with sunglass-colored pages
Books about food with pictures of weeping grapefruits
Books about baking bread with browned corners
Books about long-haired Frenchmen with uncut pages
Books of erotic engravings with pages that stick
Books about inns whose stars have sputtered out
Books of illuminations surrounded by darkness
Books with blank pages & printed margins
Books with fanatical footnotes in no-point type
Books with book lice
Books with rice-paper pastings
Books with book fungus blooming over their pages
Books with pages of skin with flesh-colored bindings
Books by men in love with the letter O
Books which smell of earth whose pages turn

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Love In The Library

Love in the library
By: jimmy buffett, mac mcanally
1994
On the corner of government and bay avenue
The old doomsday fanatic wore a crown of kudzu
Sirens were wailing in the gulf coastal heat
And it seemed like the whole world was in forced retreat
Paid no attention, revolved through the door
Past the newspaper racks on the worn marble floor
Near civil war history my heart skipped a beat
She was standing in fiction stretched high on bare feet
Chorus:
Love in the library
Quiet and cool
Love in the library
There are no rules
Surrounded by stories
Surreal and sublime
I fell in love in the library
Once upon a time
I was the pirate, she was the queen
Sir francis and elizabeth, the best theres ever been
Then she strolled past my table and stopped at the stairs
Then sent me a smile as she reached for flaubert
Chorus:
Love in the library
Quiet and cool
Love in the library
There are no rules
Surrounded by stories
Surreal and sublime
I fell in love in the library
Once upon a time
She gathered her books, walked while she read
Words never spoken, but so much was said
You can read all you want into this rendezvous
But its safer than most things that lovers can do
Well stories have endings, fantasies fade
And the guard by the door starts drawing the shade
So write your own ending and hope it comes true
For the lovers and strangers on bay avenue
Chorus:
Love in the library
Quiet and cool
Love in the library
There are no rules
Surrounded by stories
Surreal and sublime
I fell in love in the library
Once upon a time
Surrounded by stories
Surreal and sublime
I fell in love in the library
Once upon a time

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History Lessons

Notoriously, history books are warm
and bland.
This one is smaller, neatly compacting
years into large print pages.
Somehow, the near coverless book
reappeared from the long, dim
Nun's library, dug up, specifically for
a reprisal of the 1918 Influenza Revisited.

It was a custom to pass out last editions.
A clear out of the aging history Teacher's
Library section.
An acknowledgement of the past
pressed onto a pupil for a masked honor.
Smells of old lockers, chesty
coughs, and fatigue. So many class
smiles and collective ease.

The book holds the marks of many
boys' notes, hen-pecked bits of scratch paper.
History written within history.

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Library Impact

Climbing along the stairs
The books collide
Library books
Collide in the corner
Distinct the writers stood shoulder to shoulder
The mutual gaze
Assume to see the dissonance one another

On division boards
The rough figures of writers
Squeezing an atmosphere of paradox
Who decided
The hanging spot

Descending the darkness
The exhausted images coughed
Slept the park trees
Bird wings folded
Ignited the flint by a line of poetry
Burning a book
Burning the heart
Burning the sense, feeling and symbol
Expecting to meet a greatness

But, the ladder is crowded
Suffocated the four seasons
They stood shoulder to shoulder
Lack of the metaphor in literature
Pressed in the thick books
Unintelligibly
Library frequently wronged
The lodge being found by the travelled poet

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Anatole France

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have left me.

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Second Hand Books

Books! Books! Books! There are so many different designs.
There are some which, by the author, are personally signed.
Some books have pages with gilt edges, which look all posh.
Some have nice pictures on their covers, which are embossed.

Some books have hard covers, while some have soft.
Some are all dusty, where they’ve been kept in the loft.
Some books have fancy covers; some just have plain.
Some have suffered mishaps, and are now all stained.

Some books are all dog-eared at the corners of their pages.
Some have gone yellow, where they’ve been around ages.
Inside some books, there can be seen a pencilled name;
Someone, who once, on this particular book, had a claim.

Some are obviously well read; their spines are all creased.
From out of a book, amazing adventures can be unleashed.
Some books have pages which are spoiled or a bit torn.
Some have covers which are grubby and look well worn.

Some just have text, while others also include illustrations.
Some are former prize winners; once the toast of the nation.
There are books by famous authors, as well as the lesser known.
Some are former library books which, to the public, were loaned.

There are romances, poetry, classics, sci-fi, humour, and histories;
Gardening, cookery, travel, thrillers, manga, and murder mysteries.
In wooden bookcases, the books are categorised, and are neatly lined.
In a second hand bookshop, you just never know what you may find.

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Samuel Johnson

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

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In Loving Memory

A long time ago,1976 to be exact
a friend said I should go along
to a writing class he had joined.
Therefore, I did and met someone,
who was to change my life.
However, I did not know it at the time.
For the first couple of years he was simply my tutor.

However, as the years rolled on,
he became my mentor,
and most of all my friend.
For every year, we knew one another
the friendship grew stronger than before.
Before I met Maurice,
he had published four novels
and I have every one.

He started with A City Called Holy,
next came The Splendour and the Havoc,
and then The World and the Flesh,
and finally Across the Frontier.
He also wrote plays,
produced, directed and acted
in them with his wife Peggy.
When I met him his books
were out of print,
but through the years,
I found them one by one.

After a friendship that lasted
over seventeen years Maurice died.
However just before he passed away,
he told me how his local library
had approached him, wanting to know
if he had any copies of his books,
as they only had one left.
He did not and felt sadly about that.
As he told me, I made a promise to myself.

Not matter how long it took,
or how much it would cost,
his local library would have,
those books of his they did not have.
More than ten years passed from the time of his death,
until I was finally able to fulfil my promise.
I collected through the years
the books the library was missing.
In January 2006, I presented them to his local library.

It was a way of saluting a special friend,
helping keep his name alive.
I did it because of the special gifts,
through the years he gave me.
His friendship, his knowledge and help
with my writing no one had ever given before.
Therefore, any success
that I may ever achieve
can be contributed to him.
A gentleman of words,
my tutor, my mentor,
and lastly a very kind and special friend.


(For the late Maurice Callard)

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