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My theory is that sometimes writers write books because they want to read them, and they aren't there to be read. And I think that was true of me.

Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even in the most-literate societies.

Writing is a way of living. It doesn't quite matter that there are too many books for the number of readers in the world to read them. It's a way of being alive for the writer.

It would be easier to write a novel without reader input, but I feel the fiction is richer for it.

Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it.

I'm not into high literature, but I think all my books are literate.

Reading is as much a part of life as any part, and it's life itself. And it allows us to live other lives that we might not have lived if we hadn't picked up those books.

If writers learn more from their books than do readers, perhaps I may have begun to learn.