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.

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

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.

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

Paranoids are the only ones who notice things anymore.

When friends stop being frank and useful to each other, the whole world loses some of its radiance.

To choose a writer for a friend is like palling around with your cardiologist, who might be musing as you talk to him that you are a sinking man. A writer's love for another writer is never quite free of malice. He may enjoy discussing your failures even more than you do. He probably sees you as tragic, like his characters - or unworthy of tragedy, which is worse.