My youngest brother had a wonderful schtick from some time in high school, through to graduating medicine. He had a card in his wallet that read, ‘If I am found with amnesia, please give me the following books to read …’ And it listed half a dozen books where he longed to recapture that first glorious sense of needing to find out ‘what happens next’ … the feeling that keeps you up half the night. The feeling that comes before the plot’s been learned.

Liu Fang is a truly gifted, world-famous player of the pipa and the guzheng, classical Chinese stringed instruments.

We must be what we are, or we become our enemies.

I have always argued, in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people.

One didn't stop to talk with creatures from one's nightmares.

Why did becoming accustomed to something have to render its pleasures stale.

Lazy poets try to elicit a reader's response with words designed to tug at the heart.