Patricia Ann

“And now a word about librarians.

We are all, from our youngest years, warned that the most dangerous, untrustworthy creature is that which stalks our public libraries. We all remember, as children, having this told to us by frazzled men in rumpled suits clutching ancient tomes to their chests.

“Aaaarrrruuuggghhh,” they would say, pointing at a diagram that was just a square with the word LIBRARY written neatly in the middle of it.

“Ouuugh!” they would continue, pointing at the clearest photograph ever taken of a librarian, which is a blurry and badly burnt Polaroid.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” they would conclude, pointing at the first diagram again. It was always a very short presentation.

Then the men would run from our classrooms, looking fearfully around and muttering, “There’s no time, just no time,” and never would be seen again.

These warnings, as playfully conveyed as they were, are serious matters that should be applied to your grown-up, serious life. Librarians are hideous creatures of unimaginable power. And even if you could imagine their power, it would be illegal. It is absolutely illegal to even try to picture what such a being would be like.

So just watch out for librarians, okay?”
― Joseph Fink, Welcome to Night Vale

“Do I have to talk to insane people?"
"You're a librarian now. I'm afraid it's mandatory.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died a Lot

“There’s no such thing as `one, true way’; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good — they’re the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren’t willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race.”
― Mercedes Lackey, Brightly Burning

“For the first time in my life, I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet's censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spite of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy...censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked, contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything---you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”
― Robert A. Heinlein