“Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.”

“Its not an academic question any more to ask whats going to happen to a cloud. People very much want to knowand that means theres money available for it. That problem is very much within the realm ...”

“Vengeful conquerors burn books as if the enemy's souls reside there, too.”

“The library remains a sacred place for secular folk ["What Libraries Can (Still) Do," The New York Review Daily, October 26, 2015].”

“There are two kinds of geniuses: the 'ordinary' and the 'magicians'. An ordinary genius is a fellow whom you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery a...”

“The fractal structure nature has devised works so efficiently that, in most tissue, no cell is ever more than three or four cells away from a blood vessel. Yet the vessels and blood take up little ...”

“In an era of globalization, people recognize that they are part of a global society, but they have no idea how to make such a society work. So far, no unified vision or leadership has emerged to gu...”

“Everybody should be equal in a democracy - that is the nature of a democracy.”

“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words ...”

“My mind is a lock pick always looking for another door to open. I often find those doors by exploring minds of others...”

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in infomation?”

“It was four o'clock of a stickily wet Saturday. As long as it is anything from Monday to Friday the average library attendant goes around thanking her stars she isn't a school-teacher; but the last...”

“The world is quiet here.”

“I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.”