“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”

“A book is completed only when it is finished by a reader.”

“A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.”

“I'd like to emphasize that when a reader finishes a great novel, he will immediately begin looking for another. If someone loves your book, it increases the chance that he or she will look at mine. So there is no competition between writers. Another writer's success helps build a larger readership for all of us.”

“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.”

“Finished, the book begins.”