I always sent my mother all these huge books I made. When my mother died, I was cleaning her cupboard, and these big books were only 20 pages long.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My mother says that after I first visited the home of the man I later married, she knew it was serious when I told her, 'Mum, he has more books than me!' So, books are at the very heart of my life.
I can't throw books away. My wife is always telling me to get rid of some.
When I was twelve, Uncle Randall looked up long enough to see that I was a reader as well, so he walked me down his hall to a linen-closet door and opened it up onto a wall of paperbacks. There were books behind books, as deep in as I could reach. He told me to take three, and when I was done, bring them back and take three more.
I don't keep any copies of my books in the house - they go to my mum's flat. I don't like them around.
Books arrive in my head all at once, and then it becomes an 18-month process of getting it all down on paper.
I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine... before she realizes she's reading.
How could I make a little book, when I have seen enough to make a dozen large books?
I was about 11 or 12 when I began to pick up my mother's books.
My father died when I was quite small, so my uncle used to buy me books and read them to me.
If you're not a parent, if you're an aunt or uncle or neighbor, books are an amazing gift.