Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer's thought that help us to do so.

The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable.

It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad.