Because we are all poets or babies in the middle of the night, struggling with being.

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

I'm afraid the negative things are always the great subjects. Failure is much more interesting than success.

They're always looking forward to going places they're just coming back from, or regretting doing things they haven't yet done. They say hello when they mean goodbye.

Richard's bookshelves weren't alphabetized. He never had time to alphabetize them. He was always too busy- looking for books he couldn't find.

When we read, we are doing more than delectating words on a page stories, characters, images, notions. We are communing with the mind of the author.

He was an artist when he saw society: it never crossed his mind that society had to be like this; had any right, had any business being like this. A car in the street. Why? Why cars? This is what an artist has to be: harassed to the point of insanity or stupefaction by first principles.