And when I was young my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

The fear of failure is so great it is no wonder that the desire to do right by one's children has led to a whole library of books offering advice on how to raise them.

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is.

I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

The act of writing... is the act of trying to understand why my opinion is what it is. And ultimately I think that's the same experience the reader has when they pick up one of my books.

The impulse to dream was slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books new ways of looking and seeing.

The experience gathered from books though often valuable is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Yes I've listened to just a few audiobooks - but hope to listen to more. I've wanted to investigate how my own books sound in this format and find the experience of listening and not reading quite fascinating.

In my books I never portray violence as a reasonable solution to a problem. If the lead characters in the story are driven to it it's at the extreme end of their experience.