Words worth keeping

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

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

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?

Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.

The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.