Pastoral Resources

The main thing that gives me hope is the media. We have radio, TV, magazines, and books, so we have the possibility of learning from societies that are remote from us, like Somalia. We turn on the TV and see what blew up in Iraq or we see conditions in Afghanistan.

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

Self-help books are for the birds. Self-help groups are where it's at.

The future? Like unwritten books and unborn children, you don't talk about it.

Living wild species are like a library of books still unread. Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books.

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.

Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

We cannot learn men from books.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

Not as ours the books of old - Things that steam can stamp and fold; Not as ours the books of yore - Rows of type, and nothing more.

Well, I don't know. It's long, it's longer than both of the other books put together, so it's more ambitious. I think I get under the skin of the people a lot more than in the other books.

It's weirder and more surprising than the other books. I think there are more places where it's just more reality bending, deliberately so. I think it's a lot more emotionally raw.

I write reviews of science books for the Boston Globe, so I like to give science books.

I've read some scripts, but I don't read as many books as I should.

Ulysses could have done with a good editor. You know people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.

I'll be left writing picture books and fairy tales.

I have two books that were published quite some time ago. I start to read about three sentences. I have to close it. I am so self-conscious. Who did I think I was?

I hope that readers will tear through my books because they can't stop themselves - and then, maybe, read them again and find new things there.

Children will not pretend to be enjoying books, and they will not read books because they have been told that these books are good. They are looking for delight.

Writing children's books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive.