How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #7
We also have knowledge of another superstition from that period: belief in what was termed the Book-Man. On some shelf in some hexagon, it was argued, there must exist a book that is the cipher and perfect compendium of all other books, and some librarian must have examined that book; this librarian is analogous to a god. (12)
Here Borges borrows another idea from the history of religion. One man learns the truth about the nature of the universe and thus becomes a subject of worship – sound familiar? Buddhism began when a man named Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment. He later became the Buddha, a figure that millions of people around the world would pray to and adore.
Quote #8
In the language of this zone there are still vestiges of the sect that worshipped that distant librarian. Many have gone in search of Him. (12)
Notice how the librarian capitalizes the word "Him" when referring to the Book-Man. It implies a certain reverence, and lets us know that the librarian might have a personal attachment to this particular religious idea.
Quote #9
I pray to the unknown gods that some man – even a single man, tens of centuries ago – has perused and read that book. If the honor and wisdom and joy of such a reading are not to be my own, then let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my own place be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification. (12)
Towards the end of his manuscript, the narrator reveals his most personal desires in the form of a prayer. Notice how he drops his logical, more distanced style? If the logical argument for the existence of the Book-Man that we quoted earlier is an example of the narrator's reason, this prayer is an example of his faith.