“I love to read about anger. A "feel bad" book always makes me feel good. And no other novel in the history of literature is more depressing than Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children.”

“The secret of keeping young is to read children's books. You read the books they write for little children and you'll keep young. You read novels, philosophy, stuff like that and it makes you feel old.”

“I have always been accused of taking the things I love - football, of course, but also books and records - much too seriously, and I do feel a kind of anger when I hear a bad record, or when someone is lukewarm about a book that means a lot to me.”

“those of us who read because we love it more than anything, who feel about bookstores the way some people feel about jewelers...”

“In one sense at any rate it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us the mind of one man but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men.”

“I wrote "David" because it seemed to me that children, who can love a book more passionately than any grown person, got such a lot of harmless entertainment and not enough real, valuable literature.”