A book is one of the most patient of all man's inventions. Centuries mean nothing to a well-made book. It awaits its destined reader, come when he may, with eager hand and seeing eye. Then occurs one of the great examples of union, that of a man with a book, pleasurable, sometimes fruitful, potentially world-changing, simple; and in a library...witho ut cost to the reader.

I can speak of my own criterion for judging whether or not a book is good or bad. I ask of it a single question, From how deep and true an impulse did it spring? Was it written merely to shock? Only to make money? Or was it written to create something more perfect and more lasting than the life experience from which it came?

This is the gift all writers seek-to write language that incandesces yet does not melt.

We all think were going to be great and we feel a little bit robbed when our expectation aren't met, but sometimes our expectations sell us short. Sometimes the expected simply pales in comparison to the Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow.

To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength.

Books are islands in the ocean of time. They are also oases in the deserts of time.

Books themselves need no defense. Their spokesmen come and go, their readers live and die, they remain constant.