“When a long book succeeds, the writer and reader are not just having an affair; they are married.”

“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”

“The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.”

“Be you writer or reader, it is very pleasant to run away in a book.”

“I don't believe that there are dangerous writers: the danger of certain books is not in the books themselves but in the passions of their readers.”

“Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader ("Good Readers and Good Writers", p. 3).”

“All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what’s cool.”

“One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights […] a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer.”

“I believe it’s something that happens when one is around art, and when one is close to books: they seep into your system, into your blood, and start to activate something in your life. We start living in the way that some of these characters live, with some sense of their sensibility. It’s almost as if the reader becomes the writer and the writer becomes the reader…”

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”