Quotes from 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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“A library is a miracle. A place where you can learn just about anything, for free. A place where your mind can come alive.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“I'll never know everything about anything, but I'll know something about almost everything and that's how I like to live.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“At its loftiest, a library's goal is to keep as many minds as possible in the game ...”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“A mind can be lost without its owner's death. A mind that no longer questions only fulfills the rudimentary aspects of its function.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“When I was his age, and even today, when it comes to books and libraries, too much is never enough”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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?”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“When someone makes a Family Circus reference and everyone on the room laughs, I'm in the wrong room.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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!”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“An old librarian once said to me, " whatever we deal with, coming here is always a visual reward.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“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.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

“Each of us is a library of thoughts, memories, experiences, and odors. We adapt to one another to produce the human condition.”
― Josh Hanagarne, quote from The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family

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“I’m really sorry, Nathan.” Her accent thickened as she stared up at him, biting her lip nervously as she wondered how much he would pout.
Nathan could go all quiet, somber, and answer her in monosyllables that drove her insane. He would glare at her.
He would watch ball games. He would come to bed late. Late. After she went to sleep. And wouldn’t give her any until the next morning. It really wasn’t fair.
“Nathan, please don’t be mad at me . . .”
“How did you hit my truck? How? It was sitting in plain view. Plain view, Sabella.” He was getting angry. He only said her full name when he was really getting angry or really, really horny. And he was not horny. Okay, this wasn’t good. She could do without for days. But she didn’t like it.
She stomped her foot, glaring back at him in irritation. “If it weren’t for you, I would have never hit it.”
“Me?” He stepped back, shaking his head fiercely. “How the hell was this my fault?”
“Because you were cutting the grass, with no shirt, in sexy jeans and boots, and seeing your tight ass striding across the lawn made me horny. You distracted me. It’s all your fault. If you dress properly things like this just would not happen, Nathan . . .”
He kissed her. It wasn’t a gentle, easy kiss. It was rough and ready and smack full of lust as he jerked her against him, pressing his cock into her belly as she gasped in pleasure.
“You are so spanked.” He picked her up, striding across the lawn, leaving her car door open, his truck abused. “Spanked, Sabella. I’m going to watch every inch of that pretty ass turn red.”
He slammed the door behind him, locking it quickly before heading for the stairs.
“Oh, spank me, Nathan,” she breathed teasingly into his ear. “Make me beg.”
He shuddered against her, threw her on the bed and proceeded to make her beg.”
― Lora Leigh, quote from Wild Card

“Betsy did not answer. She was a talker, her family always said, but sometimes when she most wanted to talk she couldn't say a word.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

“The library would've cheered me up, most days. I loved the heavy oaken tables, the high walls stacked with books to the ceiling, the musty smell of old pages and the heavy brass fixtures that had gone dark with age and wear.”
― Claudia Gray, quote from Afterlife

“His eyes held a subtle light that she could not mistake for anything other than true attraction. The kind that mere friends did not share. She hated it. She loved it. She hated that she loved it.”
― Ted Dekker, quote from Blink

“The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.”
― Edward Gibbon, quote from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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