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

The epic implications of being human end in more than this: We start our lives as if they were momentous stories, with a beginning, a middle and an appropriate end, only to find that they are mostly middles.

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.

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.

Either a writer doesn't want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want.

Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live. There is in men, as Peter Quennell said, "a centrifugal tendency." In our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation.