Until a friend or relative has applied a particular proverb to your own life, or until you've watched him apply the proverb to his own life, it has no power to sway you.

Books: a beautifully browsable invention that needs no electricity and exists in a readable form no matter what happens.

Many good poets are really essayists who write very short essays.

I'm often called obsessive, but I don't think I am any more than anyone else.

I no longer want to live in an apartment furnished with forklifts and backhoes.

Perforation! Shout it out! The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired pills or tuftlets on each new edge! It is a staggering conception, showing an age-transforming feel for the unique properties of pulped wood fiber.

I keep thinking I'll enjoy suspense novels, and sometimes I do. I've read about 20 Dick Francis novels.