“In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.”

“The ambition of much of today's literary theory seems to be to find ways to read literature without imagination.”

“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.”

“No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.”

“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”

“The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.”