“All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page...”

“Like a word on a page that you’ve printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you’ve lost something, even if you’re not sure what it is.”

“When I write a page that reads badly I know that it is myself who has written it. When it reads well it has come through from somewhere else.”

“News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising.”

“We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.”

“Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, — all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, — who is good? not that men are ignorant, — what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.”