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I'm not a critic, and I never talk about other people's work.

When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

So I haven't thought about the critics for a long time.

But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.

I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written.

I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others my pleasure in the books and authors I write about, though sometimes I do need to cavil and point out shortcomings.

Critics try to pin so many different inaccuracies on me and my music; they look at the complicated things and try to simplify them. They think they can nail your whole life down just by knowing the bare bones of your history in partaking in 10 minutes of conversation.

I don't read the critics.

I was not used to criticism.