“My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensi...”

“I always wanted to be a writer, and I did want to be a novelist. In college I took a couple of classes that taught me I would never be a novelist. I discovered I had no imagination. My short...”

“For me, literature is a way of enlarging myself by learning about people who are not like me.”

“Pen-bereavement is a serious matter.”

“I have never been able to resist a book about books.”

“It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest o...”

“In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar.”

“My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their...”