“Nothing is more impotent than an unread library.”

“Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library.”

“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.”

“I imagine Johnny Mathis hates Bin Laden as much as I do, but could Johnny agree Bin Laden had a better speechwriter than Bush? "Axis of Evil"? Come on. "A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain" is much more powerful propaganda. Poetic, even.”

“Without Obsession, Life Is Nothing”

“Life is nothing if you're not obsessed.”

“Maybe there is no better novel in the world than Denton Welch's In Youth Is Pleasure. Just holding it in my hands, so precious, so beyond gay, so deliciously subversive, is enough to make illiteracy a worse social crime than hunger.”