Quote

My experience is that books take on a life of their own and create their own energy. I've represented books that have been sold for very little money and gone on to great glory, and I've seen books sold for an enormous amount of money published to very little response.

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a poor substitute for life.

I think almost every writer in the world would hope that books would be always talked about with respect and civility and depth and seriousness.

Books can capture injustices in a way that stays with you and makes you want to do something about them. That's why they are so powerful.

I think, to give our bookshelf a little credit, our area of the library and the bookstore has attracted stronger writers as it's started to thrive.

I think that books are fundamentally educational.

Books are our umbilical cord to life. They connect us deeply, and with more meaning, to the world. They aren't about escaping from ourselves but expanding ourselves and finding within us the tools we need to survive.

Unfortunately writers take a very small part of the profit on their books, and I think in the e-book world there is a real danger they will take even less, unless they are vigilant and robust about protecting their own interests.

When you write a novel, you never have to be in the service of the reader. My only concern with my books is that the world that's created be as logical and whole as possible.

On the whole, books are indeed less finite than ourselves. Even the worst among them outlast their authors - mainly because they occupy a smaller amount of physical space than those who penned them. Often they sit on the shelves absorbing dust long after the writer himself has turned into a handful of dust.