You have to protect it too, you can't let just any stupid person take it and do something demoralizing with it. At the same time, I don't believe in being so rigid about controlling what happens either.

You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not an audience, it's one to one.

People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he's ever read, and another person will say it's absolutely idiotic. I mean, there's no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

We all want to believe in impossible things, I suppose, to persuade ourselves that miracles can happen.

Money's important. Everyone cares about money. And when you don't have money, money becomes the overriding obsession of your life.