Like Seeing A Photograph Of Yourself As

You Can Assume That If A Writer's Work Has Survived For Centuries, There Are Reasons Why This Is So, Explanations That Have Nothing To Do With A Conspiracy Of Academics Plotting To Resuscitate A Zombie Army Of Dead White Males.

With So Much Reading Ahead Of You, The Temptation Might Be To Speed Up. But In Fact It’s Essential To Slow Down And Read Every Word. Because One Important Thing That Can Be Learned By Reading Slowly Is The Seemingly Obvious But Oddly Underappreciated Fact That Language Is The Medium We Use In Much The Same Way A Composer Uses Notes, The Way A Painter Uses Paint. I Realize It May Seem Obvious, But It’s Surprising How Easily We Lose Sight Of The Fact That Words Are The Raw Material Out Of Which Literature Is Crafted.

A Lot Of Girls Who Turn Into Something Remarkable Start Off As Irrepressible, Confident And A Handful.

I Can No More Reread My Own Books Than I Can Watch Old Home Movies Or Look At Snapshots Of Myself As A Child. I Wind Up Sitting On The Floor, Paralyzed By Grief And Nostalgia.

Fact-checking Is So Boring Compared To Writing Fiction.