books

"What is more important in a library than anything else — is the fact that it exists."

"…I did something with my first novel that I think a lot of debut novelists do, which is they act as if it was a freak accident that they wrote it. They sort of disown it or whatever. When they’re like…"

"I'm not saying that his views are anti-American. That was a misreading of what I said and so I don't believe that that's my position."

"Perhaps the greatest novel of the century."

"The cedar and the juniper tree have the same uses and good qualities... from the cedar is produced an oil called cedar oil. Books as well as other things smeared with this are not hurt by worms or dec…"

"None could have, because I don't read them. I doubt anyone does, except other critics. It seems like a sealed-off field with its own lieutenants, pretty much preoccupied with its own intrigues. I got …"

"More money for the Pentagon when it's own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25% of what it already spends."

"The Bahá’í Reference Library"

"Basic would never have surfaced because there was always a language better than Basic for that purpose. That language was Joss, which predated Basic and was beautiful. But Basic happened to be on a GE…"

"Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers — such l…"

"It can be considered by many to be foolhardy, especially when you’re messing with what’s considered a sacred text. But it’s also an irresistible challenge, isn’t it? It evokes so many different wild a…"

"Read Paris Review's interview with Anthony Burgess"

"The great inconvenience of new books is that they prevent us from reading the old ones."

"Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all."

"The groan of the people spread over the hills; it was like the thunder of night, when the cloud bursts on Cona; and a thousand ghosts shriek at once on the hollow wind."

"All poets who, when reading from their own works, experience a choked feeling, are major. For that matter, all poets who read from their own works are major, whether they choke or not."

"Humility is one of the nets spread by real greatness."

"John Horgan NDP Caucus page"

"I am not collecting copies of the cheaper editions of Omar Khayyám. I gave the last four that I received to the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, with FitzGerald's notes, to his aged …"

"Between 1945 and 1965 Catholic novelists and poets received 11 Pulitzer Prizes and 5 National Book Awards " ."