I mean, when you're tired of book reviews, you're tired of life.

The paradox of the English country house is that its state of permanent decline, the fact that its heyday is always behind it, is part of the seduction, just as it is part of the seduction of books in general.

Escapism has value, even if I don't know what its value is, exactly. Maybe it's just part of some healthy way that we deal with the world.

His whole personality was like an elaborate joke that he never stopped telling.

I have spent many, many hours reading J.K. Rowling's work. I am a known 'Harry Potter' fan.

I've only read three books by Stephen King. When I was 10 I read 'The Long Walk,' one of his pseudonymous Bachman books. In my early 20s, while trapped on a family vacation, I read 'The Dark Half,' which taught me a word I have never forgotten: psychopomp. Now I have read '11/22/63.'

A novel with a bad middle is a bad book. A bad ending is something I've just gotten in the habit of forgiving.