Anatole Broyard

"It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn’t wait to leave."

"An aphorism is a generalization of sorts, and our present-day writers seem more at home with the particular."

"The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait."

"A good book is never exhausted. It goes on whispering to you from the wall."