“Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.”

“Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.”

“I can't understand how a man who seems never to read imaginative writing of any kind (novels, poetry, short stories, high-brow, middle-brow, low-brow, anything) can understand life, people, the world. I don't care if ordinary people read or not. It's not for me to say how people should live. But people who have power over me? I want them to read because their limited, impoverished dreams may become my nightmares.”

“Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.”

“Every book you read may not save your life but some of them will.”

“You ordinary people who read and do not write, who 'like to read' and know nothing of the sufferings of writers, how fortunate you are!”