“Whatever happened to the good old days when books just got along, cozied up together on bookshelves, hanging out, waiting to be read?”

“Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.”

“I drank coffee and read old books and waited for the year to end.”

“Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me.”

“I woke up this morning and fell out of bed;
Trouble waiting to happen.
Should've quit while I was ahead;
Trouble waiting to happen.
I turned on the news to the Third World War,
Opened up the paper to World War IV.
Just when I thought it was safe to be bored,
Trouble waiting to happen.”

“Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. […] If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.”

“In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.”

“You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream, you've got to get out there and make it happen yourself.”

“The current publishing scene is extremely good for the big, popular books. They sell them brilliantly, market them and all that. It is not good for the little books. And really valuable books have been allowed to go out of print. In the old days, the publishers knew that these difficult books, the books that appeal only to a minority, were very productive in the long run. Because they're probably the books that will be read in the next generation. It's heart-breaking how often I have to say when I'm giving talks, "This book is out of print. This book is out of print."”

“I had an interesting day's reading yesterday, with the sudden sensation of being in close contact with what I was reading. […] But as for reading how curious it is: all these books, their lore of the ages, waiting to be embraced but usually slipping out of one's nerveless hands on to the floor. When one reads properly it is as if a third person is present.”