Quotessence
Home / Authors / Alberto Manguel
Alberto Manguel

Alberto Manguel Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllBookLibraryReaderReadingPagesWorldBooksIfsStoriesKnowsWritingSpaceMayNightShelvesWayCertainLiteratureReasonWells

Famous Alberto Manguel Quotes

“No one stepping for the first time into a room made of books can know instinctively how to behave, what is expected, what is promised, what is allowed. One may be overcome by horror--at the cluster or the vastness, the stillness, the mocking reminder of everything one doesn't know, the surveillance--and some of that overwhelming feeling may cling on, even after the rituals and conventions are learned, the geography mapped, and the natives found friendly.”

BookBooksLibraryLibraries
Book:The Library at Night
Create image

“Something about the possession of a book - an object that can contain infinite fables, words of wisdom, chronicles of times gone by, humorous anecdotes and divine revelation - endows the reader with the power of creating a story, and the listener with a sense of being present at the moment of creation.”

BookMomentsStoriesGoneCreationObjectsDivineReaderWords Of WisdomCreatingHumorousInfinitePossessionRevelationsListenersFablesAnecdotesChroniclesDivine RevelationTimes Gone By
Author:Alberto Manguel
Create image

“The stories that unfold in the space of a writer's study, the objects chosen to watch over a desk, the books selected to sit on the shelves, all weave a web of echoes and reflections of meanings and affections, that lend a visitor the illusion that something of the owner of this space lives on between these walls, even if the owner is no more.”

IfsBookStoriesSpaceWatchesStudyObjectsWallIllusionReflectionAffectionChosenOwnersEchoesDesksShelvesVisitorsSelected
Book:The Library at Night
Create image

“We can imagine the books we'd like to read, even if they have not yet been written, and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess, even if they are well beyond our reacher, because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles--a library that, in its variety and complexity, fully reflects the reader we are.”

IfsWellsBookDreamEnjoyInterestImagineWrittenReaderLibraryVarietyComplexityFoibles
Book:The Library at Night
Create image

“It has always been my experience that, whatever groupings I choose for my books, the space in which I plan to lodge them necessarily reshapes my choice and, more important, in no time proves too small for them and forces me to change my arrangement. In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long. Like Nature, libraries abhor a vacuum, and the problem of space is inherent in the very nature of any collection of books.”

LongImportantBookProblemChoicesForceSpacePlansProveEmptyRemainsLibraryCollectionsInherentArrangementsShelvesVacuumsLodges
Book:The Library at Night
Create image

“Old or new, the only sign I always try to rid my books of (usually with little success) is the price-sticker that malignant booksellers attach to the backs. These evil white scabs rip off with difficulty, leaving leprous wounds and traces of slime to which adhere the dust and fluff of ages, making me wish for a special gummy hell to which the inventor of these stickers would be condemned.”

TryingLittlesBookWould BeAgeEvilWishWhiteHellSpecialDifficultyLeavingWoundsDustRipInventorStickerSlimeFluffBooksellersScabsGummies
Book:The Library at Night
Create image

“Ordered by subject, by importance, ordered according to whether the book was penned by God or by one of God's creatures, ordered alphabetically or by numbers or by the language in which the text is written, every library translates the chaos of discovery and creation into a structured system of hierarchies or a rampage of free associations.”

BookLanguageNumbersWrittenSubjectsCreationCreaturesDiscoveryImportanceChaosLibraryAssociationTranslateHierarchyRampage
Book:The Library at Night
Create image

“I had a library of maybe 1,000 books in my room in Buenos Aires. I did have the sense that everything there was organised in the right way. You'll probably think I needed serious psychiatric treatment, but there were times when I would not buy a book because I knew it wouldn't fit one of the categories into which I had divided the library.”

ThinkingWayBookRoomsSeriousNeededFitLibraryTreatmentCategoriesDividedRight WayOrganisedPsychiatricBuenos Aires
Author:Alberto Manguel
Create image