It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

A bookcase is as good as a view, as much of a panorama as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms and zephyrs.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

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.

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