I love old books. They tell you stories about their use. You can see where the fingerprints touched the pages as they held the book open. You can see how long they lingered on each page by the finger stains.
After you finish a book, you know, you're dead. But no one knows you're dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.
I mean, the wonderful thing about writing a book is that you're getting a finished product at the end of the day. You're communicating directly with the reader.
Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend.
By no means did my first book sell. I took a few runs at it. You'll never see those early efforts 'cause they're burned, straight to the fireplace where they belong.
I try to do that in this book without preaching - to try to do as you just said that you really have to defend the First Amendment rights of everybody.
When I was really little, my favorite book was 'The BFG'. I read it - my teacher in, like, first grade read it to us. I love that book.
As an old reporter, we have a few secrets, and the first thing is we try the phone book.
I expected a lot of flak over my new book, '50 Things Liberals Love to Hate' from, well, liberals. It's not a big shock that the kind of liberals I skewer in the book - the radical, Che Guevara-loving type - have posted scathing reviews at Amazon and written nasty e-mails and voiced opposition to a book they haven't actually read.
When Holly Madison, Hef's former chief girlfriend, came out with a tell-all book about life in the Mansion, the most bizarre revelation was that, prior to the man's infamous orgies, all of the live-in girlfriends were required to put on matching pink flannel pajamas.
Whether you're going to a museum or a flea market or flipping through a book, always be on the lookout for something special.
Now, I'll tell you something that might interest you. Casino Royale was the first Bond book that Ian Fleming ever wrote. And he couldn't get anybody to touch it, to publish it - he couldn't do anything about it at all. Nobody wanted to know.
Before bed, I read a book or flip on the radio - I'm not picky, I'll just turn it on and see what comes up. I burn a yummy lavender- scented candle.
Maybe this is pathetic, but I still dread producing a book that doesn't earn back its advance. I hate obligations that are financially foggy.
Our culture constantly inundates us with new information, and yet our brains capture so little of it. I can spend half a dozen hours reading a book and then have only a foggy notion of what it was about.
My first course came and I put down my book, and I just happened to put up my hand to scratch my head and discovered that my toupee had been blown by the wind and was folded over backwards on the top of my head!
The same sort of thing happened in my dispute with the National Trust book: Follies: A National Trust Guide, which implied that the only pleasure you can get from Folly architecture is by calling the architect mad, and by laughing at the architecture.
I'm fond of science fiction. But not all science fiction. I like science fiction where there's a scientific lesson, for example - when the science fiction book changes one thing but leaves the rest of science intact and explores the consequences of that. That's actually very valuable.
In a Glasser Quality School there is no such thing as a closed book test. Students are told to get out their notes and open their books. There is no such thing as being forbidden to ask the teacher or another student for help.
Like many people, I only knew of Ford Madox Ford through a book called 'The Good Soldier,' which is everybody's favorite Ford Madox Ford if they have one, but I came to read 'Parade's End' when it was suggested via Damien Timmer of Mammoth Screen.
