I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'm good at reading people.
Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.
Anyone I know who's almost died has come out of it, at least for a while, looking at things differently.
When I die there may be a paragraph or two in the newspapers. My name will linger in the British Museum Reading Room catalogue for a space at the head of a long list of books for which no one will ever ask.
We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living.
I read a lot when I'm away. I love courtroom dramas and I'm always looking for new authors.
I will try to write books until I drop dead.
Unless their use by readers bring them to life, books are indeed dead things.
The whole point about historians is that we are really communing with the dead. It's very restful - because you read. There's some sociopathic problem that makes me prefer it to human interaction.
I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure.