Life - and I don't suppose I'm the first to make this comparison - is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.

I was a stranger and you took me in. -Joji G. Shoji, d. 1921

What do I do now?” “I don’t know. Fade away, perhaps. Or find another role.

Most people don't realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn't value its librarians doesn't value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?

I love doing the readings. The readings are the fun bits... The readings are probably the things that actually keep me going on these. If I couldn't do the readings, I wouldn't do the [signing] tours. I get to stand up there and read to a bunch of adults who in many cases nobody's read to in years, since they were about five. They just squat on the floor. That's enormously enjoyable.

He had read books, newspapers and magazines. He knew that if you ran away you sometimes met bad people who did bad things to you; but he had also read fairy tales, so he knew that there were kind people out there, side by side with the monsters.

For me, I would rather read a good book, from a contented author. I don't really care what it takes to produce that.