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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

For years they have been using the role of 'sex object' as a cover while they spied out the land.