“It’s always encouraging to be told that it is intellectually acceptable to read the sorts of things that you like to read anyway.”

“The annoying thing about reading is that you can never get the job done. The other day I was in a bookstore flicking through a book called something like 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (and, without naming names, you should be aware that the task set by the title is by definition impossible, because at least four hundred of the books suggested would kill you anyway), but reading begets reading--that's sort of the point of it, surely?--and anybody who never deviates from a set list of books is intellectually dead anyway.”

“Read the story like you believe it, read with passion to your children. Encourage their imagination”

“People shock me when they say they never read. When I was young, if people didn't read they would never admit it. Now, its quite acceptable to be anti-intellectual.”

“Everybody should read fiction… I don’t think serious fiction is written for a few people. I think we live in a stupid culture that won’t educate its people to read these things. It would be a much more interesting place if it would. And it’s not just that mechanics and plumbers don’t read literary fiction, it’s that doctors and lawyers don’t read literary fiction. It has nothing to do with class, it has to do with an anti-intellectual culture that doesn’t trust art.”

“The best thing you can do for your kids is to encourage reading for pleasure--it makes required school reading so much easier and deeper and hones grammar, spelling, writing, comprehension, knowledge and imagination ...be it comic books or classics, fiction or non, Lord of the Rings or Lord of the Flies, let them read what they truly like...:)”