The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2)

by A.J. Hackwith

Pour enough of yourself into anything, and it will gain a gravity and gravitas.

Hero’s insults were worth a king’s ransom, damn it. It was perhaps the only value he could rely on these days.

Maybe the story of humanity is learning to be brave enough to be the character in their own story.

“They burn them first, the stories. Humans always come for the stories first. It’s their warm-up, before they start burning other humans. It’s their first form of control, to burn the libraries, to burn the books, to burn the archives of a culture. Humans are the stories they tell. If you want to destroy your enemy, destroy their stories. Even if the people survive, it will be as if they never existed at all.”

I’m not sure if humans have sacrificed more ink than blood to their gods over the years, but if not, it has to be a near thing.”

The curse of unwritten books is to never truly live but exist forever.

Mad . . . now, that’s a peculiar term, and, saints, don’t they love applying it to women. Women have a special facility for madness. We’re encouraged to go mad over the littlest things, because if our anger caught and held on the big things, we’d shape the world. It’s acceptable to be mad; it’s dangerous to be angry.

A good story gets under your skin, because that’s where all good stories start.

Books are a secret hidden in plain sight. Read me, they say. Look at me. Turn my pages. Touch my spine. Read my words, and content yourself. Every book is a secret that only readers know.

If there’s one thing I learned from the specter of my predecessor, it is this: to be a librarian is to be in rebellion against time, against the world.

A reader doesn’t mark his life by days but by memories. A book doesn’t mark its life by pages but by readers. We are made up of those whom we touch. Librarian Claire Juniper Hadley, 2017 CE

What is a story without want, without need? Moreover, what is want, what is need, without a story? Librarian Gregor Henry, 1896 CE

Going mad is an excellent defense. Nothing is so discounted, dismissed, as an eccentric woman speaking the truth. Librarian Fleur Michel, 1792 CE

roles. Life—it goes on. Change happens. Secrets get out. Challenges appear. Decisions are forced. Whether we’re ready for them or not.”