Pastoral Resources

My only books were woman's looks, and folly's all they've taught me.

The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged.

In the later books I am much more at home in the use of language to describe things. I had never thought of that until a critic pointed that out.

The way I create music is maybe like a painting, to compose in a more visual way. Basically it's the music that I want to hear- that's my inspiration and bottom line. I just try to get ideas from books, movies, paintings.

The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.

You've got all these books on self help, getting to know yourself, doing the right thing, eating the so-called right foods, even down to what books you have on your shelves. People are encouraged to look to themselves first as opposed to being a part of society.

I'm totally into new age and self-help books. I used to work in a bookstore and that's the section they gave me, and I got way into it. I just loved the power of positive thinking, letting yourself go.

I spend my happiest hours in reading Vedantic books. They are to me like the light of the morning, like the pure air of the mountains - so simple, so true, if once understood.

Anyway, in the mid 80's I was spending a fortune buying old Golden Age books from the late 30's and 40's and I was making personal appearances at a lot of sci fi and comic book conventions all around the country here so that I could find books for my collection.

Well, I've been a big fan of comic books since I was a little kid. In fact, I used to write and draw my own comic books when I was on the old Lost in Space series.

A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts.

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don't know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying - please let me live until I am finished.

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal, or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction, but often it's really just about the money, the perceived prestige.

I guess there is also an element of deliberate change involved. Each of my books has been, at least from my point of view, radically different from the last.

I think that the online world has actually brought books back. People are reading because they're reading the damn screen. That's more reading than people used to do.

I never read a single book as a child. I did not read as a child. I worked on the farm. I had books in the classroom, but that was it. I never read a single book outside of the classroom.

The Bible and several other self help or enlightenment books cite the Seven Deadly Sins. They are: pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, sloth, and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that we do, that is sinful... or fun for that matter.

My parents would read those books to me as well but they used to make me starving when I was a kid because they were always eating ham sandwiches with the crusts off and drinking ginger beer.

But everything of value about me is in my books.

I will say I am the sum of my books.