Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home.

I can't predict how reading habits will change. But I will say that the greatest loss is the paper archive - no more a great stack of manuscripts, letters, and notebooks from a writer's life, but only a tiny pile of disks, little plastic cookies where once were calligraphic marvels.

People talk about the pain of writing, but very few people talk about the pleasure and satisfaction.

I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I'd touched bottom.

I think I understand passion. Love is something else.

Reading is also a journey. It's a process of discovery.

Reading liberates you. You could know about the world through reading.