“But it is impossible, I find, to tidy books without ending by sitting on the floor in the middle of a great untidiness and reading.”

“Life doesn't have a neat beginning and a tidy end, life is always going on. You should begin in the middle and end in the middle, and it should be all there.”

V.S. Naipaul book Half a Life

“Books everywhere. On the shelves and on the small space above the rows of books and all along the floor and under chairs, books that I have read, books that I have not read.”

Edna O'Brien book Country Girl

“Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

“Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

“I find it hard to sit still in one spot, and impossible to sit still in two spots.”

Brother Theodore (1906–2001) German-American monologuist and comedian

“Nobody reads a book to get to the middle.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

“If Brideshead Revisited is not a great book, it's so like a great book that many of us, at least while reading it, find it hard to tell the difference.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

“Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a book which I forget that I am reading, but am instead immersed in a made-up life lived at the highest pitch.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

“I could read the great books but the great books don't interest me.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer