Pastoral Resources

Many poets write books. They'll tell you: Well, I've got my next book, but there are two poems I need to write, one about x, one about y. This is a wonder to me.

My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work.

The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.

The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.

Why do I do this every Sunday? Even the book reviews seem to be the same as last week's. Different books same reviews.

He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.

To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.

It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.

I have some shorter stories coming out in other books early next year. I might be pitching a re-vamp of Ghost Rider in the spring. We'll see.

MAY it please your Honors: I was desired by one of the court to look into the books, and consider the question now before them concerning Writs of Assistance.

To see this place would truly be worth a trip to India in itself, and from the spirit of the religion that lived here one can learn more in an hour of viewing than from all the books ever written.

Television is actually closer to reality than anything in books. The madness of TV is the madness of human life.

One of the things I learned, one of the strangest things, is how to think. There was nothing else to do. I couldn't see people, or go for a walk in the forest. All I had was my head and my books, and I thought a lot.

Most people don't have the money to spend on advertising to create awareness among readers, nor do they have the contacts at newspapers or magazines to get their books reviewed.

In 1986 we were trying to help women get in print, stay in print, and come to the attention of booksellers and libraries. At that time, books by men mystery writers were reviewed seven times as often as books by women.

Very few of my books are about who stole the Maltese Falcon.

The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.

Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.

For many years I had heard about an underworld consisting of people who act out a vampire fantasy while I was living in New York. Fortunately for me there are also several books on the phenomena.