
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
It's a roll call of dead books.
Salon interview (1997)
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
“A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual.”
"A Note on Cabellian Harmonics" in Cabellian Harmonics (April 1928)
Context: A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book "means" thereafter, perforce, — both grammatically and actually, — whatever meaning this or that reader gets out of it.
From the thirteenth book, "The Book of the Dead"
The Pillow Book
“When you publish a book, it’s the world’s book. The world edits it.”
"A Visit with Philip Roth," interview with James Atlas, The New York Times Book Review (2 September 1979), p. BR1
“It is impossible to publish your book, and it will not be published in the next 200 years.”
1960s
Source: The Bankrupt Bookseller (1947), p. 56