The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

I also work here because I love books, because I'm inveterately curious, and because, like most librarians, I'm not well suited to anything else. As a breed, we're the ultimate generalists. I'll never know everything about anything, but I'll know something about almost everything and that's how I like to live.

A library is a miracle. A place where you can learn just about anything, for free. A place where your mind can come alive.

The public library contains multitudes. And each person who visits contains multitudes as well. Each of us is a library of thoughts, memories, experiences, and odors. We adapt to one another to produce the human condition.

I'll never know everything about anything, but I'll know something about almost everything and that's how I like to live.

To see the value of a library, ignore the adults. Find an inquisitive child who doesn't have an iPhone yet, take them to the library, and tell them that they can learn anything they want there.

A community that doesn't think it needs a library isn't a community for whom a library is irrelevant. It's a community that's ill.

The library has a robust collection of what I call non-cuddly hate lit. This is one of my favorite things about working here: If you believe censorship is poison, here lies paradise.

The word 'yes' is just a sound. It's nothing without context. It can signal the end of a life, an exultation after a scored basket or a vanquished foe; it can answer questions or refute them; it's an affirmation.

At its loftiest, a library's goal is to keep as many minds as possible in the game ...

A good library’s existence is a potential step forward for a community. If hate and fear have ignorance at their core, maybe the library can curb their effects, if only by offering ideas and neutrality. It’s a safe place to explore, to meet with other minds, to touch other centuries, religions, races, and learn what you truly think about the world.

Test everything that can be tested. As soon as you think you know something, that's when you stop questioning it. Understanding kills curiosity. Understanding kills progress.

I work [at a library] because I love books, because I'm inveterately curious, and because, like most librarians, I'm not well suited to anything else. As a breed, we're the ultimate generalists. I'll never know everything about anything, but I'll know something about almost everything and that's how I like to live.

A mind can be lost without its owner's death. A mind that no longer questions only fulfills the rudimentary aspects of its function.

When I was his age, and even today, when it comes to books and libraries, too much is never enough

It is what is. I repeated, looking at him in the eyes. No. It isn't. That's stupidity right up there with 'failure is not an option.' Of course it's an option or there wouldn't be any sort of adventure to it, would there? The word 'adventure' means undetermined outcome, did you know that? So failure would have to be an option, right?

When someone makes a Family Circus reference and everyone on the room laughs, I'm in the wrong room.

Josh, do you know what my favorite thing is? she asked. I mean, my very favorite thing? I'm not sure. It's when the whole family comes for a holiday and you kids just sit around and laugh together. You don't have any idea what that feels like for me. There's nothing I look forward to more.

I’m rarely at a loss for words outside the library. But within its walls I'm required to form sentences that no logical person should ever have to utter, for instance, "You can't sleep on the floor at the library under your blanket.

I love to tell kids that everything in the library is theirs. "We just keep it here for you." One million items that you can have for free! Collection that represents an answer to just about any question you could ask. A bottomless source of stories and entertainments and scholarly works and works of art.

As a librarian, saving lives and worlds isn't in my purview, although if I could put those on my resume with a straight face, I would. Saving minds, however … perhaps it's not as farfetched. A mind can be lost without its owner's death. A mind that no longer questions only fulfills the rudimentary aspects of its function. A mind without wonder is a mere engine, a walking parasympathetic nervous system, seeing without observing, reacting without thinking, a forgotten ghost in a passive machine.

I love to tell kids that everything in the library is theirs. “We just keep it here for you.” One million items that you can have for free!

An old librarian once said to me, " whatever we deal with, coming here is always a visual reward.

You can repent of most sins by making restitution, but you can't bring a dead body back to life, and you can't restore your virginity. We are made in God's image, and God is no fornicator.

For Orwell, the loss of a life was the loss of a mind was the loss of a world, and the world we inhabit is poorer for each loss, for the contributions that mind could have made.

I smiled at these books every time I saw them on my shelves. In many ways I sill feel like an incomplete person, but at least I had those books; I was more complete than anyone unlucky enough not to have them.

Each of us is a library of thoughts, memories, experiences, and odors. We adapt to one another to produce the human condition.