“It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain information about a country or about a social class or about the author.”

“The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Nothing - and everything - about it is real.”

“These are not stories about girls getting what they want sexually, they are stories about girls gaining acclaim socially, for which their sexuality is a tool.”

“The goal of gospel teaching... is not to 'pour information' into the minds of class members... The aim is to inspire the individual to think about, feel about, and then do something about living gospel principles.”

“Fiction may be about lying – on the surface, anyway – but fiction is about hiding the truth behind those lies. It's about using those lies to say something true and real. It's about showing the reader something. It's about making them feel.And how we do that as authors is to put ourselves into our work, and make it mean something to us, so that it will mean something to the reader. That's what we should do. That's our job.”

“Who would not spout the family teapot in order to talk with Keats for an hour about poetry, or with Jane Austen about the art of fiction?”