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

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.

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

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.

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.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry.

If 'bounded by a surface' is the definition of body there cannot be an infinite body either intelligible or sensible.

I sort of feel I'm only as good as the last record I made. I was on as soon as I finish it I immediately put it aside and move on to the next project.

You get no more and no less than what you believe you deserve.

My ambition is to not embarrass myself--which, if you know me, is a pretty serious ambition.

All great works of art are trophies of victorious struggle.

It's sort of the American way to go up and down the ladder, maybe several times in a lifetime.

Success is only meaningful - and enjoyable - if it feels like your own.

To the youth of today, I also have a wish to make: be the scriptwriters of your destiny and feature yourselves as stars that showed the way towards a brighter future.

There are no good saves, there are only weak shots.