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How some of the writers I come across get through their books without dying of boredom is beyond me.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.

If modesty and candor are necessary to an author in his judgment of his own works, no less are they in his reader.

A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.

Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.