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Henry did not want to be fixed, was somehow convinced that the fix would be a lie, something that would lessen him.

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The things of the world fell by the wayside . . . but literature was eternal.

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Read sometimes for the story, Bobby. Don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words - the language. Don't be like the pl...more

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A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it. You prime a pump with your own water, you work the handle with your own strength....more

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Good books are for consideration after, too.

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Come to the book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it and draw your own map.

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He sat there studiously bent over his work (Bill saw him), which lay in a slant of crisp white winterlight, his face sober and absorbed, knowing that ...more

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If someone had asked him, “Ben, are you lonely? , ” he would have looked at that someone with real surprise. The question had never even occurred to h...more

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If someone had asked him, “Ben, are you lonely? , ” he would have looked at that someone with real surprise. The question had never even occurred to h...more

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Obliqueness is the curse of the reading class.

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In a book, all would have gone according to plan... but life was so fucking untidy — what could you say for an existence where some of the most crucia...more

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You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you.

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I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before th...more

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Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it.

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Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concer...more