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1 " He saw a square room furnished as a library. The entire section of the walls which he could spy was covered from floor to ceiling with books. There were volumes of every size, every shape, every colour. There were long, narrow books that held themselves like grenadiers at stiff attention. There were short, fat books that stood solidly like aldermen who were going to make speeches and were ashamed but not frightened. There were mediocre books bearing themselves with the carelessness of folk who are never looked at and have consequently no shyness. There were solemn books that seemed to be feeling for their spectacles; and there were tattered, important books that had got dirty because they took snuff, and were tattered because they had been crossed in love and had never married afterwards. There were prim, ancient tomes that were certainly ashamed of their heroines and utterly unable to obtain a divorce from the hussies; and there were lean, rakish volumes that leaned carelessly, or perhaps it was with studied elegance, against their neighbours, murmuring in affected tones, " All heroines are charming to us. "
2 " Good books are rare, and to have a really good library, a few shelves are all we need. When I was still on my campus in India, I was convinced, like many professors, that if the Lord was to be found anywhere, it was in the lower stacks of the library. But now - just as when I go into a big department store, I can say, " How many things I don't need! How many expensive suits I don't want!" - when I enter a big library I say, " What tomes I don't have to read again! What folios I will never open!" This feeling of freedom will come to all of us when we realise, in the depths of our meditation, that all wisdom lies within. "
3 " This book is a work of fiction.Actually, it is a work of fiction within a fiction, as the main characters, though real persons in a fictional world, are being depicted in a book which other fictional characters in the same world are reading. Any reference to historical events-- rather, historical events non-Marridonian, and also non-Sesternese-- real people—rather, people in our realm, not the persons I was referring to in the previous line-- or real places—places that are not Marridon, Sesterna, and any place on the Two Continents-- are used fictitiously, because this is a work of fiction, and is a fiction within a fiction, as was previously stated. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination—referring to the ultimate author, not the fictitious author who has written the book within the book-- and any resemblance to actual events, locales, persons, living, dead, or otherwise, is entirely coincidental, but any resemblance to actual persons or places in the Two Continents is intentional. Absolutely no parts of this book, text or art, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, whether electronically or mechanically, including photocopying—“By Myrellenos, are we here in the disclaimer again? This is the third time, I believe. And there are still no cups out. Where is the teapot?”“Here, boss.”“Oh, there is tea in this story? I might be more inclined to stay and hear this one. The others were dreadful slow. I must have some tea, if I am going to be made to sit and listen to a whole book. I am not Bartleby, who can sit at his desk and flump over his tomes until he moulders.”“He’s gonna hear you, boss.”“I should say not, Rannig. He is too busy with doing the edits. He found a mistake in one of the other books about us and demanded he perform the editing this time around. The author was very good to let him do as he likes. He is missing tea, however.”--audio recording, data retrieval, cloud storage, torrent, or streaming service. If you do decide to ignore this disclaimer and print or share this book illegally, I will have Bartleby come to your house with a sample from the Marridonian legal extracts, and he will read them to you until you promise never to do anything illegal again. "
― Michelle Franklin , The Ship's Crew: A Marridon Novella
4 " Then, idly scratching his nose, he walks to the bookcase in the living room and stoops before a set of drab brown Victorian volumes gathering dust on the second shelf from the bottom.How amusing, he thinks, as he withdraws one of them-amusing that a key to dark and ancient rites should survive in such innocuous-looking form.A young fool like Freirs would probably refuse to believe it. Like the rest of his doomed kind, he'd probably expect such lore to be found only in ancient leather-bound tomes with gothic lettering and portentously sinister titles. He'd search for it in mysterious old trunks and private vaults, in the " restricted" sections of libraries, in intricately carved wood chests with secret compartments.But there are no real secrets, the Old One knows. Secrets are ultimately too hard to conceal. The keys to the rites that will transform the world are neither hidden nor rare nor expensive. They are available to anyone. You can find them on the paperback racks or in any second-hand bookshop. "
5 " Where books had been a comfort before, they became a necessity, old books best of all: thick heavy tomes with stories that spread and twisted through other worlds, where he could walk like a ghost in the footsteps of other lives. "
― Alexia Casale , House of Windows
6 " Muslims pursued knowledge to the edges of the earth. Al-Biruni, the central Asian polymath, is arguably the world's first anthropologist. The great linguists of Iraq and Persia laid the foundations a thousand years ago for subjects only now coming to the forefront in language studies. Ibn Khaldun, who is considered the first true scientific historian, argued hundreds of years ago that history should be based upon facts and not myths or superstitions. The great psychologists of Islam known as the Sufis wrote treatise after treatise that rival the most advanced texts today on human psychology. The great ethicists and exegetes of Islam's past left tomes that fill countless shelves in the great libraries of the world, and many more of their texts remain in manuscript form.In the foreword of " Being Muslim. A Practical Guide" by Dr. Asad Tarsin. "
7 " You could read a dozen large tomes on the history of Islam from its very beginnings and you still wouldn't understand what is going on in Algeria. But read 30 pages on colonialism and decolonisation and then you'll understand quite a lot. "
― Amin Maalouf , الهويات القاتلة