We don't simply read books. We become them.

Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

The more I like a book, the more reluctant I am to turn the page. Lovers, even book lovers, tend to cling. No one-night stands or "reads" for them.

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.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience.

A book is meant not only to be read, but to haunt you, to importune you like a lover or a parent, to be in your teeth like a piece of gristle.