If there is any good in life, in history, in my own past, I invoke it now. I invoke it with all the passion with which I have lived.

When you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.

No book that is written for an external purpose is going to be a passionately felt book for the writer or the reader. I don't see the point in doing that.

Recently abandoned women can be complicated.

I keep telling myself I should try very hard to write a novel of about 210 pages... I don't seem to be capable of it, but I keep hoping it will happen.

My publishers are wonderful because they have let me write what I wanted to. They're wise enough to know that, with any author who's not simply writing formulas - who's trying to create something new - pressuring them to do something for market purposes almost always backfires. I can't imagine working under those circumstances, actually.

He brought his great hand to rest on an early edition of Bram Stoker's novel and smiled, but said nothing. Then he moved quietly away into another section.