In books there are chapters to separate out the moments, to show that time is going by and things are changing, and sometimes the parts even have titles that are full of promise—’The Meeting’, ‘Hope’,...

It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.

…this blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those...

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.

Imagine a very long time passing – and I find my way out, following someone who already knows how to leave Hell. And God says to me on Earth for the first time, “Xas!” in...

I’m such a magpie. I’ll get halfway through one thing and pick up something else. I always have 5 or 6 books open and spine-up by my bed: it’s like a row of tents. I...

I thought about writing the character as male, but then I would be forced to portray him as a woman in a man’s body.

At any time, and under any circumstances of human interest, is it not strange to see how little real hold the objects of the natural world amid which we live can gain on our hearts...

He believes that if talent is demanded of a literary publisher or a writer, it must also be demanded of a reader. Because we mustn’t deceive ourselves: on the journey of reading we often travel...

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.

They turned to Angel. “We will call you Little One,” the leader said, obviously deciding to dispense with the whole confusing name thing.”Okay,” said Angel agreeably. “I’ll call you Guy in a White Lab Coat.”...

Take no heed of her…. She reads a lot of books.

There is no other escape like a book. Reading expands your mind and opens your world to a myriad of possibilities.

As children we read to escape—to enter fantasy worlds where a bespectacled boy can discover he’s a wizard or a brave girl can find a magical passage through a wardrobe. But we also read to...

Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food.

My personal theory is that younger audiences disdain books – not because those readers are dumber than past readers, but because today’s reader is smarter.

How can you be nervous? Don’t you see? We’re in a library.

I consume an enormous number of books, but they’re always on a particular subject because I’m obsessive.

An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.

I demand from a book harmony as unity and moderation; that determines the choice of words, the type and number of metaphors, the development and conclusion

I hope you enjoy reading my book as much as I didn’t enjoy writing it. Just kidding! I hope you don’t enjoy it at all.

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books...

Literature is humanity’s broad-minded alter-ego, with room in its heart for monsters, even for you. It’s humanity without the judgement.

You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I’ve read a book, I don’t feel like I’ve finished anything. So I start a new...

Naked Lunch” that day, but the cafeteria served us all clothing. I like my meals a little more scandalous. I should eat in the library, along with the other gluttonous nudists.

The act of underlining always contains an element of self-recognition.

You could never be certain what you would find in a book that had spent time with someone else.

But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.

Of course. You get everything from books.

The books that influence the world are those that it has not read.

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

Heaven is a warm cat and a good book.

Desire overwhelmed me once she had gone. But it was not a desire for Homer. I had to return to the library. I could already smell the books’ muskiness and in my mind turned over...

No, read in order to live.

The biggest spur to my interest in art came when I played van Gogh in the biographical film Lust For Life. The role affected me deeply. I was haunted by this talented genius who took...

To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were,...

I think I learned a lot from reading in general – even from reading badly written books.

Discovery a good book is like finding a great treasure.

It took me a long time to come out as someone who doesn’t like film. It’s a bit like when people say they don’t like books: you get that sharp intake of breath.

Literature is impossible, in exactly this sense: every new generation has so much ‘catching up’ to do that the real choice that presents itself soon is the following one: one either spends ones entire life...

The Bible is the greatest book ever written.

No one forces me, or any other writer, to sell a film option on the books. If you don’t want to run the risk that the filmmakers may adapt your work in a way you...

Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not...

I don’t have goals when writing books, apart from getting to the end. I have rather vague ideas about how I want things to feel, I’m big on ambience. I have a title, a beginning...

The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth. The great philosophers have always been able to clear away the complexities and see simple distinctions – simple once they are stated, vastly...

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I’ll waste no time reading it.

Amanda took the torn page from Maniac. To her, it was the broken wing of a bird, a pet out in the rain.

The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don’t have to write a preachy book to...

For it was through books that she felt her life to be unjudged Look at all of the great mix-ups, messes, confinement, and double-dealings in Shakespeare, she thought.Identities disguised continually, in a combative dance of...

I find things hidden in books: dried flowers, locks of hair, tickets, labels, receipt, invoices, photographs, postcards, all manner of cards. I find letters, unpublished works by the ordinary, the anguished, the illiterate. Clumsily written...