“If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book.”

“The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell it to you again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book."(Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading, Harper's Magazine, February 2008)”

“You make faces when you read, you know. I can always tell when you're reading something happy or suspenseful, or upsetting. Your face shows everything...whenever you read, it's all reflected there in your face. Like that time you came over, and Andrew was busy studying, so you read In Cold Blood. You were grimacing and flinching through the whole book, as though it was happening personally to you.”

“If you can have everything at fifty that you wanted when you were fifteen, you're happy.”

“Because with a really good book you get something new every time you read it. Because…Well…Because you're a different person each time.”

“She wrote me a letter (Joan,1941) asking,"How can I read it?,Its so hard." I told her to start at the beginning and read as far as you can get until you're lost. Then start again at the beginning and keep working through until you can understand the whole book. And thats what she did”