God Save Us From People Who Mean

But I Too Hate Long Books: The Better, The Worse. If They're Bad They Merely Make Me Pant With The Effort Of Holding Them Up For A Few Minutes. But If They're Good, I Turn Into A Social Moron For Days, Refusing To Go Out Of My Room, Scowling And Growling At Interruptions, Ignoring Weddings And Funerals, And Making Enemies Out Of Friends. I Still Bear The Scars Of Middlemarch.

Fiction Basically Is A Form Of Gossip Where You Want To Enter Other People's Lives, The Lives Of People You Don't Know, And You Want To Know What's Going To Happen To Them.

For A Writer, Obsession Is A Good Substitute For Self-discipline.

I Simply Seem To Drift. But I Sort Of Allow The Drift, Because It Has A Kind Of Check - It Forces Me To Work Harder At What I'm Interested In.

I Have A Reputation For Being Hermitlike. I'm Not. I'm Just Obsessed With My Work.