American books reflect our common heritage with many other nations and their influence upon our culture. The influences are endless, linking us with the rest of the world. Thus, they are good ambassadors for us.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My book collection is primarily in America, since that's where I've lived most of my life.
American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.
The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.
I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.
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.
Many authors hate to go on grinding book tours. But I've always found it a useful way to be a foreign correspondent in America and take the pulse of the country.
It used to be that the highest ambition of American novelists was to write 'the Great American Novel,' that great white whale of American fiction that would encompass all the American experience in one great book.
For some of us, books are intrinsic to our sense of personal identity.
Only the best books are special. Why? Because they open our eyes, touch us, excite us, extend us.
Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If they are really good, they make us believe that we are better for having read them. You don't read a book - you experience it. Every story opens up a new world.