I Think Novelists Perform Many Useful Tasks

I Treasure Solitude. One Doesn't Have To Have Human Contact.

There Is Only One Way To Read, Which Is To Browse In Libraries And Bookshops, Picking Up Books That Attract You, Reading Only Those, Dropping Them When They Bore You, Skipping The Parts That Drag-and Never, Never Reading Anything Because You Feel You Ought, Or Because It Is Part Of A Trend Or A Movement. Remember That The Book Which Bores You When You Are Twenty Or Thirty Will Open Doors For You When You Are Forty Or Fifty-and Vise Versa. Don’t Read A Book Out Of Its Right Time For You.

We Are Several People Fitted Inside Each Other. Chinese Boxes. Our Bodies Are The Outside Box. Or The Inside One If You Like.

Sometimes I Pick Up A Book And I Say: Well, So You've Written It First, Have You? Good For You. O.k., Then I Won't Have To Write It.

Bad Luck For Both Of Us, We Are Both Boulder-pushers.