“He who knows the reader, does nothing for the reader.”

“[I]f the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the reader is.”

“It is the reader who comes to complete the work and to close, albeit temporarily, the world that it opens, and the reader does this in a different way every time.”

“That brings me to the real reason for the title: Where does that which happens during reading a book take place? (...) Does not every reader, whether he wants it or not, bring (...) his own experiences and thoughts into the process of reading? (...) Is not every book a mirror in which the reader is reflected, whether he knows it or not? And is not every reader a mirror in which the book is reflected?”

“A writer is nothing without a reader; a reader is nothing without a writer.”

“As you know, Joyce was a writer who asked his reader to give him a lifetime,” he said. “I am that reader, and I can tell you it was a wasted life.”