Alberto Manguel Quotes

Quotes about:

• Books may not change our suffering, books may not protect us from evil, books may not tell us what is good or what is beautiful, and they will certainly not shield us from the common fate of the grave. But books grant us myriad possibilities: the possibility of change, the possibility of illumination.

  Alberto Manguel

  Beautiful, Book, Fate

  34 Copy quote

• Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth.

  Alberto Manguel

  Reading, Book, Rebirth

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.31, Vintage Canada

  51 Copy quote

• Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Darkness, Return

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “A Reading Diary”, p.66, Vintage Canada

  22 Copy quote

• At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader.

  Alberto Manguel

  Confused, Book, Childhood

  10 Copy quote

• As centuries of dictators have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule; since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it has been acquired, the second-best recourse is to limit its scope.

  Alberto Manguel

  Reading, Crafts, Crowds

  11 Copy quote

• I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Waiting, Feelings

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.237, Vintage Canada

  11 Copy quote

• Each book was a world unto itself, and in it I took refuge.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Reading, World

  Alberto Manguel (2014). “A History of Reading”, p.27, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

• In the light, we read the inventions of others; in the darkness we invent our own stories.

  Alberto Manguel

  Writing, Night, Light

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.252, Vintage Canada

  8 Copy quote

• I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.

  Alberto Manguel

  Children, Book, Home

  "Conversation: Alberto Manguel". "PBS NewsHour" with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. February 19, 2010.

  11 Copy quote

• One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Creating, Different

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.19, Vintage Canada

  10 Copy quote

• Life happened because I turned the pages.

  Alberto Manguel

  Inspirational, Motivational, Pages

  Alberto Manguel (2014). “A History of Reading”, p.200, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

• We read to understand, or to begin to understand. We cannot do but to read. Reading almost as much as breathing, is our essential function.

  Alberto Manguel

  Reading, Breathing, Essentials

  "A History of Reading". Book by Alberto Manguel, 1996.

  5 Copy quote

• Existing libraries, in their very being, seem to question the authority of those in power.

  Alberto Manguel

  Library, Authority, Seems

  7 Copy quote

• The starting point is a question.

  Alberto Manguel

  Starting, Starting Point

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.8, Vintage Canada

  8 Copy quote

• My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Voice, Space

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.19, Vintage Canada

  10 Copy quote

• The love of libraries, like most loves, must be learned.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Reading, Thought Provoking

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.9, Vintage Canada

  14 Copy quote

• To say that an author is a reader or a reader an author, to see a book as a human being or a human being a book, to describe the world as text or a text as the world, are ways of naming the readers craft.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, World, Crafts

  "A History of Reading". Book by Alberto Manguel, 1996.

  13 Copy quote

• Reading in bed is a self-centered act, immobile, free from ordinary social conventions, invisible to the world, and one that, because it takes place between the sheets, in the realm of lust and sinful idleness, has something of the thrill of things forbidden.

  Alberto Manguel

  Reading, Self, Lust

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Alberto Manguel

  Wall, Book, Reflection

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.175, Vintage Canada

  12 Copy quote

• Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Space, Numbers

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.68, Vintage Canada

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Humorous, Creating

  "A History of Reading". Book by Alberto Manguel, 1996.

  9 Copy quote

• For Borges, the core of reality lay in books; reading books, writing books, talking about books. In a visceral way, he was conscious of continuing a dialogue begun thousands of years before and which he believed would never end.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Alberto Manguel (2006). “With Borges”, Telegram Books

  7 Copy quote

• In the dark, with the windows lit and the rows of books glittering, the library is a closed space, a universe of self-serving rules that pretend to replace or translate those of the shapeless universe beyond.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Dark, Space

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.17, Vintage Canada

  12 Copy quote

• Deserted libraries hold the shades of writers who worked within, and are haunted by their absence.

  Alberto Manguel

  Library, Shade, Absence

  10 Copy quote

• Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does not contribute to the common good.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Reading, Important

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.209, Vintage Canada

  4 Copy quote

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