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.

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

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 more I like a book, the more slowly I read. this spontaneous talking back to a book is one of the things that makes reading so valuable.

Sometimes it seems that we might have been happier if we had once had an aristocracy to blame everything on.

Paranoids are the only ones who notice things anymore.

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