“It began to falter not when the book publishers who loved books gave way to those who preferred profits to reading. It happened when publishers and editors cut back on their drinking. If there is one national flower in book publishing, it is the martini.”

“When you publish a book, it’s the world’s book. The world edits it.”

“From Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story, re: the travel book boom of the 1970sSurprisingly, none of the new developments in travel publishing came from established companies. The changes in the air seemed to completely bypass them and when they did wake up to the upsurge in growth it was too late -- they'd been overtaken. Much the same happened a decade later with computer books. Just as the travel book explosion was led by travelers who got into publishing rather than publishers getting into travel, so the computer book explosion was led by computer geeks getting into publishing. The regular publishers never saw it coming.”

“[P]ersonally, I know I’d prefer to read an honest review by someone who has no reason to lie, than a book reviewer who has an employer and a publishing house to keep happy.”

“No one will write books once they reach heaven, but there is an excellent library, containing all the books written up to date, including all the lost books and the ones that the authors burned when they came back from the last publisher.”

“I have a hardcore attitude: a “self-published, ghost-written book” is wrong because the concept behind self publishing is that you have knowledge or emotions that you want to express. Whenpeople read a book—particularly a self-published one—they have the right to expect that it’s the person’s writing, not cleaned-up dictation or slapping a name on a book that someone else wrote.”