“Miss Warrender's 'selfish' inner quest was to find a 'purpose in life and give it all I have got'. This instructive, amusing, dramatic and bravely candid account is an answer in itself. She also took the photographs, reproduced in black and white, that adorn an already pleasing book. All together, this is an essential addition to the canon. -John McEwen book critic”
“I read books when I was a kid, lots of books. Books always seemed like magic to me. They took you to the most amazing places. When I got older, I realized I couldn’t find books that took me to all the places I wanted to go. To go to those places, I had to write some books myself.”
“What care I if it be "wild and improbable" and "lacking in literary art"? I refuse to be any longer hampered by such canons of criticism. The one essential thing I demand of a book is that it should interest me. If it does, I forgive it every other fault.”
“For is not a Book the most reliable of Companions--and generally among the most stimulating as well? No need to worry about amusing or pleasing or making a good impression on a Book, when its only purpose is to entertain and, perhaps, instruct. And if it should fail in that purpose, one can merely return it to its shelf, without so much as a by-your-leave and no occasion for anxiety about its wounded Pride, either.”
“The answer to all of life's problems are out there somewhere its just a question of finding the right book”
“Life … is a bit like reading. … If all your responses to a book have already been duplicated and expanded upon by a professional critic, then what point is there to your reading? Only that it’s yours. Similarly, why live your life? Because it’s yours. But what if such an answer gradually becomes less and less convincing?”