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

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

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

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.

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

There are few things more subtly distressing than an inappropriate gift from someone close to you.

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