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The beauty of reading is that it lets you travel in a way you could never know.

Those of us who know the transporting wonder of a reading life know that it little matters where we are when we talk about books or meet authors or bemoan the state of publishing because when we read, we are always inside, sheltered in that interior room, that clean, well-lighted, timeless place that is the written word.

Of course, you always think about how it will be read. I always aim for a reading in one sitting.

When you're reading, you're not where you are; you're in the book. By the same token, I can write anywhere.

Writing is like carrying a fetus.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone's written the story. He's supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment.

I don't want to approach reading from the viewpoint of that it's a pleasant adjunct to your life. I want to approach it from the idea that you have to read or you're going to suffer. There's a difference to be made - and you can make it if you read with your child.

I should imagine that the conditions in the cockpit are totally unimaginable.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you're forced back on your own imagination.