My Passion Has Always Been Books And

Most Great Works Of The Imagination Were Meant To Make You Feel Like A Stranger In Your Own Home. The Best Fiction Always Forced Us To Question What We Took For Granted. It Questioned Traditions And Expectations When They Seemed To Immutable.

Poor Reading, Like Poor Writing, Is Imposing What You Already Know On Texts. You Should Go Into Reading To Discover, Not To Reaffirm What You Know.

A Novel Is Not Moral In The Usual Sense Of The Word. It Can Be Called Moral When It Shakes Us Out Of Our Stupor And Makes Us Confront The Absolutes We Believe In.

I See People Who Talk About America, And Then Undermine It By Not Paying Attention To Its Soul, To Its Poetry. I See Polarization, Reductionism And Superficiality.

In All Great Works Of Fiction, Regardless Of The Grim Reality They Present, There Is An Affirmation Of Life Against The Transience Of That Life, An Essential Defiance. This Affirmation Lies In The Way The Author Takes Control Of Reality By Retelling It In His Own Way, Thus Creating A New World. Every Great Work Of Art, I Would Declare Pompously, Is A Celebration, An Act Of Insubordination Against The Betrayals, Horrors And Infidelities Of Life. The Perfection And Beauty Of Form Rebels Against The Ugliness And Shabbiness Of The Subject Matter.