The moment a book is lent I begin to miss it.

It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars.

Two people making love, she once said, are like one drowned person resuscitating the other.

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

When friends stop being frank and useful to each other, the whole world loses some of its radiance.

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.