“I don't really care how people read. I care if people read.”

“But I know how much you care for me. I read it in the ribbon. Lorcan sighed. Did you really need to read the ribbon to know that I cared for you?, he said. Really, Grace, don't you know me at all?I thought I did, she said”

“I'm talking about those novels where the characters aren't really interesting and you don't care about them or anything they care about. It's those books I won't read anymore. There's too much else to read--books about people and things that matter, books about life and death.”

“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.”

“Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend “a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who really care for books read all of them. There is no other course.”

“For me, I would rather read a good book, from a contented author. I don't really care what it takes to produce that.”