World-famous people read Vartan Gregorian’s “The Road to Home” (Video in Armenian)

Gareth Evans - Former Australian Foreign Minister 

From Tabriz, Iran to New York City, a poor boy, yearning for knowledge, a wandering Armenian who ended up on the society pages of the New York Times. This is the life it has been my privilege to lead. 

 

 

Samantha Power - Former US Ambassador to the UN

Now, as I sit in my office, under a portrait of Andrew Carnegie, I am given to reflecting on the long voyage that brought me here. In Lebanon, my first mentor - Simon Vratzian, the last prime minister of the short-lived first Republic of Armenia, was a surrogate father, teacher and benevolent benefactor. For all my success in the first ten years, I owe him. 

 

Ruben Vardanyan -  Co-Founder of Aurora Humanitarian Initiative  

Many mentors, friends and strangers have helped and guided me along the way,-as well, of course, as my wife and children. But sometimes there is a slight suspicion in me that a fickle finger of fate was still involved in everything.

 

Lord Ara Darzi - Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London

I had a great empathy for Carnegie and detected some similarities in our backgrounds:  We were both boys from poor families. We both knew, in our hearts and in our bones, that education would save us and direct us - that in fact, education is the key to a better life for everyone, no matter who they are or where they are born. 

 

 

Bernard Kouchner - Former French Foreign Minister 

A book to me is still one of the most extraordinary creations of man, because it is a gift of knowledge. A book contains dreams, ideas and ideals. It contains notions about reality and utopia, about revolutions and clues about life and freedom and happiness.

 

 Mary Robinson - Former President of Ireland

To construct and cherish a library is to invest not only in ourselves, but in future generations. A library is a legacy. A library is a mirror to the past and a window to the future. 

 

Noubar Afeyan - Co-Founder of Aurora Humanitarian Initiative

As a young boy in Tabriz, I had read about the terrible devastation wrought by the Great War, including the deportations, atrocities and genocides perpetrated against civilian populations. 

 

Ernesto Zedillo - Former President of Mexico 

One thing is clear, however: peace will be rooted in understanding how the differences between us - between states, peoples, and nations - cause conflict, and in finding ways of managing those differences instead of letting them explode into hostilities. 

 

 

George Clooney - Film Producer 

Andrew Carnegie himself said that he wanted the philanthropies he had begun to do real and permanent good in this world. I had no money, so I have learned through Carnegie's legacy, what is possible to do with money: give it away! In much the same way, I had learned earlier, how a boy who had no books could grow up to be a man dedicated to using the resources of many to provide books for millions.