I used to read only fiction. Now I don't read much, only occasionally, such as a Cormac McCarthy or a Jim Harrison novel.
A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction.
The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time.
I first read 'Madame Bovary' in my teens or early twenties.
The cartoon me writes the books cartoon people read in the cartoon world, because they need things to read there too.
I read 'The Hobbit' but not a single one of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. I had to lie about this pretty much all through high school. I still say it apologetically.
I always wanted to be a fiction writer, but I couldn't figure out how you could be a novelist and make any money, which continues to be a problem for novelists the world over.
My collection of rare books concerns only books that don't tell the truth.
Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but a half dozen in any thousand.
One should not be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed.
I think reading the novels definitely was a good source for me to study from.
I meet a number of people as a writer of fiction who say "Oh, I don't read much fiction," as if the history of the United States, just as an example, isn't an exercise in storytelling and myth-making.
