If the Library of Alexandria was the emblem of our ambition of omniscience, the Web is the emblem of our ambition of omnipresence; the library that contained everything has become the library that contains anything. Alberto Manguel More Quotes by Alberto Manguel More Quotes From Alberto Manguel Reading is at the beginning of the social contract. Alberto Manguel contracts reading social In every literate society, learning to read is something of an initiation, a ritualized passage out of a state of dependency and rudimentary communication. Alberto Manguel passages communication states Socrates affirmed that only that which the reader already knows can be sparked by a reading, and that the knowledge cannot be acquired through dead letters. Alberto Manguel reader reading letters 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. Alberto Manguel space long book Slothful, feeble, pretentious, pedantic, elitist - these are some of the epithets that eventually become associated with the absent minded scholar, the poor sighted reader, the book worm, the nerd. Alberto Manguel nerd poor book A library is an ever-growing entity; it multiples seemingly unaided, it reproduces itself by purchase, theft, borrowings, gifts, by suggesting gaps through association, by demanding completion of sorts. Alberto Manguel library gaps growing Through ignorance, through faith, through intelligence, through trickery and cunning, through illumination, the reader rewrites the text with the same words of the original but under another heading, re-creating it, as it were, in the very act of bringing it into being. Alberto Manguel illumination creating ignorance At different times and in different places I have come to expect certain books to look a certain way, and, as in all fashions, these changing features fix a precise quality onto a book's definition. I judge a book by its cover; I judge a book by its shape. Alberto Manguel fashion judging book In no way am I demeaning writing or any other form of art because it's popular. What I'm saying is that anything fed into the industrial machinery to comply with rules of size and length and shelf-life has a hard time surviving as art. Alberto Manguel hard-times writing art Not until I came to Canada did I realize that snow was a four-letter word. Alberto Manguel humor snow funny I've never really understood attachment to a place for reasons of birth. That my mother happened to give birth to me in a certain place doesn't, to my mind, justify any thankfulness towards that place. It could have been anywhere. Alberto Manguel attachment mother giving This morning I looked at the books on my shelves and thought that they have no knowledge of my existence. They come to life because I open them and turn their pages, and yet they don't know that I am their reader. Alberto Manguel pages morning book I quickly learned that reading is cumulative and proceeds by geometrical progression: each new reading builds upon whatever the reader has read before. Alberto Manguel progression reader reading Every text assumes a reader. Alberto Manguel assuming reader As readers, we have gone from learning a precious craft whose secret was held by a jealous few, to taking for granted a skin that has become subordinate to principles of mindless financial profit or mechanical efficiency, a skill for which governments care almost nothing. Alberto Manguel jealous government skills We are losing our common vocabulary, built over thousands of years to help and delight and instruct us, for the sake of what we take to be the new technology's virtues. Alberto Manguel vocabulary technology years Reading is the occupation of the insomniac par excellence. Alberto Manguel occupation excellence reading Every reader has found charms by which to secure possession of a page that, by magic, becomes as if never read before, fresh and immaculate. Alberto Manguel charm magic pages In the books by Ruy-Sanchez we find again the erotic conviction that allows us to read with all the skin. The erotic, in his narratives is not a subject or a phrase, it is the clay of what they are made. In his novels every experience, trivial or extraordinary, breaths through the erotic. Alberto Manguel erotic skins book I can understand that there are those who can think and imagine the world without words, but I think that once you find the words that name your experience, then suddenly that experience becomes grounded, and you can use it and you can try to understand it. Alberto Manguel names trying thinking
