Librarian Of Burned Books Quotes

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

So what if you burned a few books? Those librarians deserve it. When we're older, maybe we'll burn it to the ground together." She knew he meant it. He'd burn the library, the city, or the whole world to ashes if she asked him. It was their bond, marked by blood and scent and something else she couldn't place. A tether as strong as the one that bound her to her parents, stronger in some ways.

I can tell you that banning books, burning books, blocking books is often used as a way to erase people, a belief system, or culture.

The men who sought violence didn't understand that while swords could destroy bodies, a pen could destroy a nation.

We also wish to make it absolutely clear that Librarians should not attempt to use the Library to transport dinosaur eggs. And if they do disregard this rule, under no circumstances should they draw official in-world attention while doing so. In fact, we wish to remind all Librarians that they are here to collect books, not dinosaurs. Those Librarians who have problems distinguishing between the two should take a refresher course in Library basics.

Books are knowledge weaponized. And what weapons you cannot steal, you must burn. Librarian Gregor Henry, 1986 CE

Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.

There are moments in life when you have to put what is right over what party you vote for. And if you can’t recognize those moments when the stakes are low—let me assure you, you won’t recognize them when the stakes are high. Thank you.

One of the loudest voices to address this issue belonged to the American Library Association (ALA). Librarians felt duty-bound to try to stop Hitler from succeeding in his war of ideas against the United States. They had no intention of purging their shelves or watching their books burn, and they were not going to wait until war was declared to take action.

Burning books about things you do not like or understand does not mean those things no longer exist.

History is built on moments that feel insignificant,

Librarians were like guardian angels, with graying hair and beady eyes, magnified through reading glasses, and always read to recommend new literary windows to gaze through.

can tell you that banning books, burning books, blocking books is often used as a way to erase a people, a belief system, a culture,” Hannah said. “To say these voices don’t belong here, even when those writers represent the very best of a country. “I can

Books are a way we leave a mark on the world, aren’t they? They say we were here, we loved and we grieved and we laughed and we made mistakes and we existed. They can be burned halfway across the world, but the words cannot be unread, the stories cannot be untold. They do live on in this library, but more importantly they are immortalized in anyone who has read them.

When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humor and ships at sea by night—there’s all heaven and earth in a book.

The way to judge people wasn’t to look at how they acted toward people they wanted to impress; it was to look at the way they treated those who could do nothing for them.

The way to judge people wasn't to look at how they acted toward people they wanted to impress; it was to look at the way they treated those who could do nothing for them.

p. 369 An attack on books, on rationality, on knowledge isn't a tempest in a teacup, but rather a canary dead in a coal mine.

I think sometimes people get so caught up in the literary prestige of a novel...the idea that reading should be fun is lost.

Books from the school library that were deemed subversive were taken out, piled high, and burned in the yard. Franka asked the librarian what they had taken and was told that the local party members had removed any books, fact or fiction, that expressed a liberal idea, or suggested that the people themselves, rather than the führer, should control their own destinies.

All Hitler had to do was make people afraid: There is a monster out there who will attack you if you don’t let me protect you.” “And if that requires sacrificing a few freedoms, then that’s the price for law and order, isn’t it?

A bonfire billowed up. Some in the crowd tossed copies of Ladybird's book into the fire while a librarian pleaded with them not to do that and grabbed a fire extinguisher.* *Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.

I can tell you that banning books, burning books, blocking books is often used as a way to erase a people, a belief system, a culture,” Hannah said. “To say these voices don’t belong here, even when those writers represent the very best of a country.

Civilization is knowledge, even more than it is urbanization, for you cannot have the latter without the former. Everything builds on everything else. And the knowledge of civilization is kept in repositories known as...LIBRARIES, and if books burn, civilization burns with them.

When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humor and ships at sea by night—there’s all heaven and earth in a book.’” It was as if someone had taken Viv’s life and bottled it into a simple quote.

If Althea had a church, it was within the covers of books; if she had a religion, it was in the words written there.

The good fight isn’t always about winning. Sometimes it’s a reminder to the world that there are people out there who are willing to try.

History is built on moments that feel insignificant

It is not failure we should fear but inaction.

The time and distance that came with history had a way of letting people forget.

She had truly thought that if she did the right thing, if she fought the valiant fight, she could be redeemed. But redemption had never lived in one single moment. It lived in a thousand of them.

In fact, we wish to remind all Librarians that they are here to collect books, not dinosaurs. Those Librarians who have problems distinguishing between the two should take a refresher course in Library basics.

I only pinch books nobody is using. And I do good works, too. I rescued quite a lot of manuscripts from the library of Alexandria before it burned down. And I had a lovely chat with the librarian. She wasn’t even worried when I walked out of a black spot in the wall. People in ancient times were much more open to magic.

This wasn’t just some pointless rally, this wasn’t just people whipped up into a frothing roar because of mostly empty words spoken by a strong orator. This was the gleeful destruction of knowledge, of science, of poetry, of love. The students who should have cherished such things were giddy as they watched all of it burn.

an attack on books, on rationality, on knowledge isn’t a tempest in a teacup, but rather a canary dead in a coal mine. “There are moments in life when you have to put what is right over what party you vote for. And if you can’t recognize those moments when the stakes are low—let me assure you, you won’t recognize them when the stakes are high. Thank you.

Few people have to watch their country die,” Hannah said, her lyrical voice all the more captivating because she spoke softly. Althea found herself leaning toward her, and she imagined the rest of the audience was no different. “I have had that dubious privilege, and I can tell you that it comes not as a rebel shout but as a sly whisper. The cracks creep in, insidious as anything I’ve ever seen. It can start with rumblings about an unreliable press and rumors about political enemies that will threaten your family, your children. It can deepen with each disdainful remark about science and art and literature in a pub on a Friday night. It comes cloaked in patriotism and love of country, and uses that as armor against any criticism.

Millions of books have been burned in the senseless violence of war. Many rulers in the past, and the present, feel threatened by stories and ideas and knowledge. They know that books can change people. They know that books can change the world. To them, this is dangerous. They don't want people to learn, to understand, to think for themselves. They don't want people to remember their history.

While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, their powerful political connections or great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

Generally, she recoiled from anyone who took themselves too seriously.

War—and she had decided they were at war—had a way of stripping away all those small things and then amplifying what was left. There were no tiny irritations or minor celebrations. It was all love and hate, fear and courage, poetry and destruction, everything more intense because of the contrast, the middle ground no longer there.

Viv didn’t press and was rewarded for her patience when the woman continued. “Books are a way we leave a mark on the world, aren’t they? They say we were here, we loved and we grieved and we laughed and we made mistakes and we existed. They can be burned halfway across the world, but the words cannot be unread, the stories cannot be untold. They do live on in this library, but more importantly they are immortalized in anyone who has read them.

But sometimes I think it was the moment right before the gasoline was poured on the books. The moment the most educated country in the world willingly, joyously, wholeheartedly turned away from knowledge.

that I have something important to say about the dangers of government censorship. Perhaps I do. I can tell you that there are people out there who want the world to only think as they think. In fact, long before Hitler had the power to incite countrywide book burnings, he wrote in Mein Kampf that a smart reader should take away from books only the ideas that support their own beliefs and discard the rest as useless ballast.

Books When Books Went to War, Molly Guptill Manning Books as Weapons, John B. Hench The Book Thieves: The Nazi Looting of Europe’s Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance, Anders Rydell The Berlin Stories, Christopher Isherwood The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer The Death of Democracy, Benjamin Carter Hett In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson Gay Berlin, Robert Beachy Articles Leary, William M. “Books, Soldiers and Censorship during the Second World War.” American Quarterly Von Merveldt, Nikola. “Books Cannot Be Killed by Fire: The German Freedom Library and the American Library of Nazi-Banned Books As Agents of Cultural Memory.” John Hopkins University Press Appelbaum, Yoni. “Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books During World War II.” The Atlantic “Paris Opens Library of Books Burnt by Nazis.” The Guardian Archives Whisnant, Clayton J. “A Peek Inside Berlin’s Queer Club Scene Before Hitler Destroyed It.” The Advocate “Between World Wars, Gay Culture Flourished in Berlin.” NPR’s Fresh Air More The Great Courses: A History of Hitler’s Empire, Thomas Childers “Hitler: YA Fiction Fan Girl,” Robert Evans, Behind the Bastards Podcast Magnus Hirschfeld, Leigh Pfeffer and Gretchen Jones, History Is Gay Podcast “Das Lila Lied,” composed by Mischa Spoliansky, lyrics by Kurt Schwabach

I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.

an attack on books, on rationality, on knowledge isn’t a tempest in a teacup, but rather a canary dead in a coal mine.

Do you want to be the ones handing out the gasoline cans? Or the ones trying to put out the fire?

She was fairly certain that at least some number of Americans secretly agreed with the hateful speech the Nazis spewed.

In fact, long before Hitler had the power to incite countrywide book burnings, he wrote in Mein Kampf that a smart reader should take away from books only the ideas that support their own beliefs and discard the rest as useless ballast.

Cervantes, then?” He paused, clearly thinking. And then quoted, “‘When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?  . . . Too much sanity may be madness—and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!’?

tried to understand what I’d seen. I felt as if I’d just stepped out of a limn on twentieth-century book burnings: gaunt, vampiric Goebbels screaming beside a seditious inferno; Stalin; Mao and his Red Guards; Iranian forces in the Republic of Mahabad burning anything in Kurdish; midcentury New York school kids incinerating comics in Binghamton; Ray Bradbury’s firemen; apartheid-era librarians; Pinochet; Pol Pot; Serbian nationalists setting fire to the National and University Library.

I must protest this policy, he transmitted in silence. Why shouldn't they be allowed to read their own books? Aren't we preserving these things for THEM, after all? Old fellow, you must understand, I replied as casually as I could. […]you've been down among them yourself. You know the villainy of which they're capable. Destructive little Barbary apes for the most part, and human intelligence only makes them worse. How many libraries have you seen burned in your time? But the mortals built the libraries too, argued Lewis[…] It takes thousands of them to create an archive of human wisdom; only one to set a torch to it. Wouldn't you have to say, then, that the work of the librarians is more typical of mortal behavior than the work of the arsonist?

Maynard, what have you been doing with yourself?" Odegar Taumber asked as the slow moving librarian shuffled from the stairwell to the main floor. Casselle caught sight of Temos and Raabel and motioned for Jaksen to deposit the books on a nearby and conveniently clean table. He did so and the squadmates reunited, just out of earshot of the Captain. "I see you two found him," Raabel said. "We've been back for some time. I guess he's as slow as he looks?" "Casselle found him," Jaksen replied. "And he's both slow and rude. I'm sure he's important enough, but seems like he was in no real danger to begin with." "I took a look out of the windows while we were searching for him," Temos said. "It doesn't look like it's calmed down much out there. I'd hate to think of trying to move him through an angry crowd. He doesn't look nimble enough to sneak by, either." "If we weren't in this damned armor, I'd just carry him," Raabel said. Coming from someone else, it might have been considered a boast, but Raabel usually didn't say things he wasn't sure he was capable of doing. Casselle pictured the old man wailing in protest, thrown over Raabel's shoulder and being forced to bounce along like a sack of potatoes. Raabel was right about the armor, though: it was clumsy and ill-fitting. It was obvious that it had not been altered for them, and none more obvious than on Casselle. Her broad shoulders were a boon, but even bound, her breasts had proved problematic to find a properly sized chestplate from a stockpile that had been made exclusively for men. They had settled on a piece that was just slightly too large, having previously been worn by a heavyset Templar from a time before. In thinking of it, she pondered Maynard's earlier words. "He called me a boy," she said. "A fat young boy." Her squadmates took a step back, shocked. "And you did not correct him?" Raabel asked. "Or worse?" Jaksen asked. "To be fair," Temos said after a moment, "he is very old. It is entirely possible he has lost his will to live.

A prism can divide white light into an infinity of shades. The colours of the rainbow are simply a taxonomy applied reductive for convenience of use. Where indigo ends and violet begins is a debate that might be substituted for any shelving argument amongst librarians seeking to place a novel. Even fact and fiction can bleed into one another. Compromise: A Librarian's Tale, by Davris Yute

A prism can divide white light into an infinity of shades. The colours of the rainbow are simply a taxonomy applied reductive for convenience of use. Where indigo ends and violet begins is a debate that might be substituted for any shelving argument amongst librarians seeking to place a novel. Even fact and fiction can bleed into one another. Compromise: A Librarian's Tale, by Davris Yute

Children made you vulnerable, your heart walking around outside your body.

If this was a fight they were going to win, they couldn’t hold grudges against the people they wanted to persuade.

So what's the system here?" "That depends on if it was designed by librarians," Livira said, "Or by sane people.

she’ll start to think of herself as something other than a political pawn.” “She still would be one, of course. But”—Viv shook her head—“maybe she would realize that’s not all she is.

When everything quieted, they lay in Althea’s narrow bed, facing each other like a pair of commas, their knees brushing, their hands petting affectionately.

Millions of books have been burned in the senseless violence of war. Many rulers in the past, and the present, feel threatened by stories and ideas and knowledge. They know that books can change people. They know that books can change the world. To them, this is dangerous. They don't want people to learn, to understand, to think for themselves. They don't want people to remember their history." Author's note

Hannah bicycled through the streets on the outskirts of the fourteenth arrondissement, her wide-legged black trousers flirting precariously with the spokes of the tires;

The men who sought violence didn’t understand that while swords could destroy bodies, a pen could destroy a nation.

We humans love telling each other stories. . . we've done just that in caves, and in amphitheaters, and in the Globe, and in kitchens around campfires, and in the trenches. Every culture, every country, every type pf person in the world tell stories. They've been whispered and sung and written down on scraps of paper and they always, always been an indelible part of our very humanity.

There are bigger things in this world than politics,” Althea continued. “There are bigger things in this world than scoring a win for your side just to score a win for your side.

What is the worst that could happen? she'd asked herself. You could die, the fear whispered back. What is the best? You could live.

What kind of person burns books? What are they afraid of?” “You’re a librarian. You should know that answer better than most,” Deuce said. “They want certain things forgotten or hidden or never known, and the places where such things are recorded, like books, become dangerous to the corrupt. The ones who want to control what people think. The ones who feel safe only when everyone sees it all their way.

Is it not poetic to exist solely to save a culture from burning to the ground?...... Is your little library not a symbolic beacon to the world that words are more powerful than flames?

attack on books, on rationality, on knowledge isn’t a tempest in a teacup, but rather a canary dead in a coal mine.

May his memory be a blessing, Brigitte had said. In Jewish tradition, that meant it was the responsibility of those who remembered the deceased to carry on his goodness.

As New York Times bestselling author Jewell Parker Rhodes says, “I love historical fiction because there’s a literal truth, and there’s an emotional truth, and what the fiction writer tries to create is that emotional truth.

Nazis are portrayed in propaganda as ignorant anti-intellectuals. But the leaders know just how powerful knowledge is. That’s why they want to control it so strictly.

sharing the secret was so much more powerful than hoarding it close to her chest. In doing so, the thread of humanity that ran between all of them tightened, strengthened, became all the more vibrant for the worlds and emotions and journeys that every reader experienced together.

It was like looking up at the moon and feeling a connection to anyone who was touched by its light.

History is built on moments that feel insignificant. p. 364

p. 363 "We cannot stop individuals who read for the sole purpose of confirming their already closely held beliefs... But we can stop the dictators, the tyrants, the bullies who try to impose that method onto others.

p. 364 Do you want to be the ones handing out the gasoline cans? Or the ones trying to put out the fire?

What Viv loved best, though, was the general consensus that books were not just books. They were stories that helped the exhausted men overseas remember what they were fighting for—freedom of thought, American values, antifascist sentiment

The men who sough violence didn't understand that while swords could destroy bodies, a pen could destroy a nation.

Even in the darkest days, in their deepest grief, at their most exhausted, humans found a way to create moments that were so fundamentally hopeful that they couldn’t help but inspire you to take one more step forward. And then one more. Hale

I can tell you that there are people out there who want the world to only think as they think. In fact, long before Hitler had the power to incite countrywide book burnings, he wrote in Mein Kampf that a smart reader should take away from books only the ideas that support their own beliefs and discard the rest as useless ballast.

an attack on books, on rationality, on knowledge isn’t a tempest in a teacup, but rather a canary dead in a coal mine. “There are moments in life when you have to put what is right over what party you vote for. And if you can’t recognize those moments when the stakes are low—let me assure you, you won’t recognize them when the stakes are high. Thank you.” “Jeez

Few people have to watch their country die. I have had that dubious privilege, and I can tell you that it comes not a as a rebel shout but as a sly whisper. The cracks creep in, insidious as anything I've ever seen. It can start as rumblings about an unreliable press and rumors about political enemies that will threaten you family, your children. It can deepen with each disdainful remark about science and art and literature in a pub on a Friday night. It comes cloaked in patriotism and love of country, and uses that as armor against any criticism.

Books are a way we leave a mark on the world, aren't they? They say we were here, we loved and we grieved and we laughed and we made mistakes and we existed. They can be burned halfway across the world, but the words cannot be unread. They do live on in this library, but more importantly they are immortalized in anyone who has read them.

her chest had been hollowed out. But they were no closer to a good plan for overturning Taft’s censorship policy, either. “You know, I heard about a place the other day,” Harrison said, his vowels all relaxed now with the liquor. “Maybe it would be worth a visit. Though it is quite the haul to Brooklyn.” He reached into his pocket for a pen and notepad and scribbled out an address. “What’s in Brooklyn?” Viv asked, trying to peer over his shoulder. Harrison grinned as he slid her the paper. “Inspiration.” Weak tendrils of hope bloomed from the ash of her defeat

Few people have to watch their country die,

I have had that dubious privilege, and I can tell you that it comes not as a rebel shout but as a sly whisper. The cracks creep in, insidious as anything I’ve ever seen. It can start with rumblings about an unreliable press and rumors about political enemies that will threaten your family, your children. It can deepen with each disdainful remark about science and art and literature in a pub on a Friday night. It comes cloaked in patriotism and love of country, and uses that as armor against any criticism.

There are bigger things in this world than politics,” Althea continued. “There are bigger things in this world than scoring a win for your side just to score a win for your side. This might seem like a melodramatic overreaction for some of you, maybe you scoff at the notion that there should be so much brouhaha over books. There were plenty of people who felt that way in May 1933, as well. And I promise you, if I’ve learned anything from my time in Berlin, it’s this: an attack on books, on rationality, on knowledge isn’t a tempest in a teacup, but rather a canary dead in a coal mine. “There are moments in life when you have to put what is right over what party you vote for. And if you can’t recognize those moments when the stakes are low—let me assure you, you won’t recognize them when the stakes are high.

All Hitler had to do was make people afraid: There is a monster out there who will attack you if you don’t let me protect you.

The moment the most educated country in the world willingly, joyously, wholeheartedly turned away from knowledge.

We cannot stop individuals who read for the sole purpose of confirming their already closely held beliefs.” She enunciated each word, a delicate fist pounding on the podium. “But we can stop the dictators, the tyrants, the bullies who try to impose that method onto others. This may feel insignificant, this moment here, in this room, talking about a single amendment to a bill that was drafted with the best intentions. I can tell you, though, that history is built on moments that feel insignificant. We

In 1928, my father, along with the rest of my country, was mocking Hitler. They saw him as a joke, someone who could be easily controlled, someone who would burn out after everyone heard his deranged spiels. Only a handful of years later, we had to flee Germany after my brother was dragged to a concentration camp, where he would be murdered for his beliefs.

The art of learning was in selection, and while generations of librarians had ostensibly been cataloguing the collection to make it accessible, they had in fact been turning it into a vast puzzle, a lock whose key was held by those in power. A lock that kept them in power.

He marks his place in books by folding over the corner of the page.” “Burn his letters and send back the ring! I cannot marry a monster!

Os livros são um jeito de deixarmos uma marca no mundo, não são? Mostram que estivemos aqui, que amamos e que sofremos, rimos, cometemos erros e existimos.