The child who gets lost in a book can emerge from the experience a changeling.

It's not that I don't like people. It's just that when I'm in the company of others - even my nearest and dearest - there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book.

Whatever (its) virtues, (the) writing explores the culture of work but marginalizes work itself.

The danger in reviewing and teaching literature for a living (is) you can develop a kind of knee-jerk superiority to the material you're "decoding

I think the influence of books is neither direct and more predictable. Books themselves are too unruly, and so are readers.

It's a gift of tranquility when your adult desires mesh with your childhood background. I don't quite know why mine didn't, although I think books, again, are partly to blame.

Meekly swallowing and assimilating the customs of the more powerful has always been a strategy by which the less powerful have tried to fit in.

Those straight-spined parishioners could justify their exhibitionism by telling themselves that they were setting an example, even educating the rest of us.

Reading, my earliest refuge in the unknown world, made me want to venture into it.

One of the many drawbacks of this "I teach what I am" approach is that it stifles classroom discussion. Any disagreement with the professor's expertise comes off as an ad hominem attack.

Generations of readers, bored with their own alienating, repetitious jobs, have been mesmerized by Crusoe's essential, civilization-building chores.

Believing, too, that is not enough. You cannot just believe. Your belief must have a purpose.

Public acceptance will never replace self-love. Nor will group membership add, create, or dictate your value.

I would have asked you to let down your hair" turning to regard her with a grin, his teeth a slash of white in his blackened face."But it is not quite long enough anymore.

I grew up playing classical guitar, so everything I learned was rooted in technique, form, presentation.

You have to think with the heart.

I just consider myself an artist. I dont really rap. I dont really sing. I just do what I feel is good, and people like it.

I'm really not a person who consumes a lot. I don't have a sports car.

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

Neymar is massively overrated.

This is why Jessica Biel is a successful actress: because, despite the punchlines, you know how to tell a joke.