An idea has been running in my head that books lose and gain qualities in the course of time, and I have worried over it a good deal, for what seemed to be a paradox, I felt to be a truth.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
This is what I have discovered - and it has been a gift in itself - that books live over and over again in different people's minds. That I might mean one thing as I write, but a reader's experiences will take it somewhere else. That is like a conversation, I think. It is a true connecting up.
I try not to recommend too many books, frankly, because I think there's a certain synchronicity that happens when people discover books.
I have faith that worthy but misunderstood or ignored books can still prevail - and when they do, fewer joys are as sweet - but authors have families to support and rent to pay, and for them, I hope for acclaim in their time rather than late-in-life or posthumously.
I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.
Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.
I know in this time of great technological advancement, the idea of reading a book seems almost anachronistic, but I think it's worth preserving.
I like to believe, as a writer, that anybody who isn't a reader yet has just not found the right book.
Books stay with me and have shaped me and made huge impacts on my life.
A book is a journey: It's a thing you agree to go on with somebody, and I think every reader's experience of a book is going to be different.
All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.