That's the curse of the reading class. We can be seduced by a good story even at the most inopportune moments.

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 concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects.

‎If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot…reading is the creative center of a writer’s life…you cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

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. You do this because you expect to get back more than you give.

Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries,hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent.

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

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 they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit.

Good books are for consideration after, too.

Obliqueness is the curse of the reading class.