But the first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.

Certain kinds of things that the novel used to do, which was, "Oh, I'm living out here in West Nowhere, Nebraska and I'm curious how the upper class in New York City lives, I guess I'll read a novel about it." We don't have to do that now. You just turn on the TV. Turn on Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous. You can get that information anywhere. Novels don't have to do that anymore.

I hate that word dysfunction.

she was so much a personality and so little anything else that even staring straight at her he had no idea what she really looked like.

It was a way of recognizing places of enchantment: people falling asleep like this.

What you discovered about yourself in raising children wasn't always agreeable or attractive.

For every reader who dies today, a viewer is born, and we seem to be witnessing . . . the final tipping balance.