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It's pretty hard to measure influence of written or visual material.

If you look at an illuminated manuscript, even today, it just blows your mind. For them, without all the clutter and inputs that we have, it must have been even more extraordinary.

Sometimes a manuscript is like bread dough. You have to abuse it.

At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it.

Sir, I see a lot of documents in my day-to-day business, and I can't tell you every document that I've seen. It may have passed across my desk. It may not have passed across my desk. I truthfully cannot answer that question, other than to say I don't remember.

After years of practice, I can walk into a bookstore and understand its layout in a few seconds. I can glance at the spine of a book and make a good guess at its content from a number of signs.

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read.

In a strange way, you have to have a certain amount of distance from a thing in order to be able to write about it.

We sometimes received - and I would read - 200 manuscripts a week. Some of them were wonderful, some were terrible; most were mediocre. It was like the gifts of the good and bad fairies.