To use an electronics analogy, closing a book on a bookmark is like pressing the Stop button, whereas when you leave the book facedown, you've only pressed Pause.

If my father were still writing essays, every full-grown 'girl' would probably be transformed into a'woman'.

One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights [...] a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer.

You can miss a lot by sticking to the point.

E-mail is a modern Penny Post: the world is a single city with a single postal rate.

For me, literature is a way of enlarging myself by learning about people who are not like me.

My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading.