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I hope for so much from every book I read. And time and again, I find myself disappointed. I look across my bookshelves and see hundreds of titles which in my memory seem merely mediocre or second-rate. Only occasionally does a novel appear for which I feel a lasting passion, a book that I think could in time become a classic.

But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably haven't read them.

An idea has been running in my head that books lose and gain qualities in the course of time, and I have worried over it a good deal, for what seemed to be a paradox, I felt to be a truth.

I was aware that there is an expectation that writers inevitably falter at this stage, that they fail to live up to the promise of their first successful book, that the next book never pleases the way the prior one did. It simply increased my sense of being challenged.

I've stopped reading about the death of books because it's wasteful and morbid and insulting to the authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, critics, and readers that keep the world community of fiction interesting.

My experience is that books take on a life of their own and create their own energy. I've represented books that have been sold for very little money and gone on to great glory, and I've seen books sold for an enormous amount of money published to very little response.

Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.

Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired.

I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.

I think almost every writer in the world would hope that books would be always talked about with respect and civility and depth and seriousness.