The three Oak Park Public Library locations are tied together thematically by the use of quotations in the buildings. The Dole Branch and Maze Branch quotations are all from Oak Park authors. The Main Library quotations are selections from world literature with strong representation of Oak Park authors.

Dole Branch Quotes | Maze Branch Quotes

Below is a sample of quotations at the Main Library:

"I believe that any people's story is every people's story, and that from stories, we can all learn something to enrich our lives."
Harriette Gillem Robinet, from If You Please, President Lincoln
(set in the terrazo floor just inside the Front Entrance)

"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Self-Reliance
(set in the terrazo floor in the First Floor Lobby)

"What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists."
Archibald MacLeish, from The Premise of Meaning
(set in the terrazo floor by the elevators on the First Floor)

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
Harper Lee, from To Kill a Mockingbird
(set in the terrazo floor by the elevators on the Second Floor)

"A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day."
Emily Dickinson, from The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson
(set in the terrazo floor by the elevators on the Third Floor)