I hope you read this, whoever you are, and imagine that there is a hypothetical person out there who needs your love, has been waiting silently, patiently for it all his life, is flawed and downright ugly at times and yet would have just eaten up any...
There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction. As Police Commissioner it was my duty to deal with all kinds of squalid misery and hideous and unspeakable in...
Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without ...
Volunteering to help others is the right thing to do, and it also boosts personal happiness; a review of research by the Corporation for National and Community Service shows that those who aid the causes they value tend to be happier and in better he...
There's a thing that happens in Hollywood, when you hand in a script with magic in it, and the people at the studio who read it say "We don't quite understand... can you explain the rules? What are the rules here? The magic must have rules" and somet...
Fiction is dangerous because it lets you into other people's heads. It shows you that the world doesn't have to be like the one you live in." At the first nationally recognized science fiction convention in China in 2007, Gaiman took a party official...
So I'm over there in England, you know, trying to get news about the [L.A.] riots... and all these Brit people are trying to sympathize with me... 'Oh Bill, crime is horrible. Bill, if it's any consolation crime is horrible here, too.' ...Shutup. Thi...
Mom is my best friend not because she is my mom, but because- She is the one who understand me without my saying, She is the one who can read my eyes, she is the one who can read my painful heart, She is the one who can give love without any return, ...
I am told by people all the time that they simply do not have time to read and listen to all the material they have purchased or subscribed to. But time is democratic and just. Everyone has the same amount. When I choose to read with my mid morning c...
[Pommeroy is reading to the class from the 1954 short story "The Destructors" by Graham Greene] Karen Pommeroy: "There would be headlines in the papers. Even the grown-up gangs who ran the betting at the all-in wrestling and the Barrow Boys would hea...
Gang Member #1: Whatcha doin' Mister? Bill Foster: Nothing. Gang Member #1: Yes you are man, you're trespassing on private property. Bill Foster: Trespassing? Gang Member #2: You're loitering too, man. Gang Member #1: That's right, you're loitering t...
[Enid is chatting to Rebecca who is working behind the counter at a coffee shop. An eccentrically dressed man in a motorized wheelchair comes up] Feldman, the Wheel Chair Guy: Excuse me... I can't read the trivia question. Enid: [reading out the dail...
Severus Snape: It appears there is a connection between the Dark Lord's mind and your own. Whether he is, as yet, aware of this connection is for the moment unclear. Pray he remains ignorant. Harry Potter: You mean if he knows about it then, he'll be...
[Brody sees his son sitting in a small skiff, and yells for him to get out of it] Ellen Brody: Martin, it's his birthday tomorrow! Brody: I don't want him out on the water! Ellen Brody: He is not out on the water, he is in a boat! He's not going to g...
Frank Childers: I told you I ain't got no boy, now why don't you get on outta here and let me be. You ain't no kin to me. Karl: [after a pause] I learned to read some. I read the Bible quite a bit. I can't understand all of it, but I reckon I underst...
Doctor in Brooklyn: Why are you depressed, Alvy? Alvy's Mom: Tell Dr. Flicker. [Young Alvy sits, his head down - his mother answers for him] Alvy's Mom: It's something he read. Doctor in Brooklyn: Something he read, huh? Alvy at 9: [his head still do...
Ron Steigler: Mr. Gardner, uh, my editors and I have been wondering if you would consider writing a book for us, something about your um, political philosophy, what do you say? Chance the Gardener: I can't write. Ron Steigler: Heh, heh, of course not...
Literature is the extant body of written art. All novels belong to it. The value judgement concealed in distinguishing one novel as literature and another as genre vanishes with the distinction. Every readable novel can give true pleasure. Every nove...
The beautiful unruliness of literature is what makes it so much fun to wander through: you read Jane Austen and you say, oh, that is IT. And then you turn around and read Sterne, and you say, Man, that is IT. And then you wander across a century or s...
Ah, but is it not the mind that is the real grace of Homo sapiens? All the things to think about! All the things to read and appreciate! All the arts! All the things of the spirit!
