How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #10
From those incontrovertible premises, the librarian deduced that the Library is "total" – perfect, complete, and whole – and that its bookshelves contain all possible combinations of the twenty-two orthographic symbols (a number which, though unimaginably vast, is not infinite) – that is, all that is able to be expressed, in every language. (7)
This conclusion turns out to be the most important rule in the entire Library. It's the key to understanding the way the entire universe works.
Quote #11
Infidels claim that the rule in the Library is not "sense," but "non-sense," and that "rationality" (even humble, pure coherence) is an almost miraculous exception. They speak, I know, of "the feverish Library"...Those words, which not only proclaim disorder but exemplify it as well, prove, as all can see, the infidels' deplorable taste and desperate ignorance. (13)
Here we see a conflict between the narrator's perspective and that of those he calls the "infidels." The narrator believes – he really wants to believe – in an elegantly ordered universe that follows all the rules he just explained to us. He criticizes the "infidels" for not having faith in order, and for thinking that the universe is chaotic.
Quote #12
If an eternal traveler should journey in any direction, he would find after untold centuries that the same volumes are repeated in the same disorder – which, repeated, becomes order: the Order. (15)
This is the narrator's personal theory and his closing argument as to why we should believe that the universe is ordered. The universe, he says, is periodic (it might be round, or it might just repeat itself in some way). The infinite repetition of what looks like disorder creates its own pattern, which he calls "the Order" with a super-important capital "O."