#188

“It is as if, for Rabelais, the inventor of a narrative is not obliged to bring coherence, logic or resolution to the text. That (as Diderot would later make clear) is the task of the reader, the mark of his freedom” (id, 277).

#187

“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. (...) In our society reading is nothing but an ancillary act, and the great repository of our memory and experience, the library, is considered less a living entity than an inconvenient storage room” (id, 223-224).

#185

“The world encyclopedia, the universal library, exists, and is the world itself” (id, 89).

#184

“God, the legend tells us, invented the multiplicity of languages in order to prevent us from working together, so we would not overreach our powers” (Manguel, 2008: 19).

MANGUEL, Alberto (2008). The Library At Night. London, New Haven: Yale University Press.