To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.

The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.

In novels, I said, people are transfigured by love. They’re elevated, made different, lifted out of their ordinariness…It’s not so much to ask, I said. I just want love to live up to its publicity.

Ruefulness is one of the classical tones of American fiction. It fosters a native, deglamorized form of anxiety.

A bookcase is as good as a view, as much of a panorama as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms and zephyrs.

If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.

People ... have no idea what a hard job it is for two writers to be friends. Sooner or later you have to talk about each other's work.