Patricia Ann

“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

“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

“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.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“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