Most of the really good literature I've read in my life was political, meaning it was important - about something going on in the history of the world - or contemporary.
Yeah, I read Judy Blume. My mother didn't like that, but I read it anyhow.
The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most.
I just started to put texting and phones in my books. I want my books to be read 20 years from now; I don't want them to be dated.
There is no denying that we are suffering from a collective neurosis and the novel which does not face this is not a novel of our time.
I think that you need to have books that talk about the lives of the poor, and they need to be involved - involved in acquisitions.
The best and only authentic book written on the sixties underground.
Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society . . . loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read.
There are no books in this world that everybody must read, but only books that a person must read at a certain time in a given place under given circumstances and at a given period of his life.
Literature is the denunciation of the times in which one lives.
I don't see that books can be written without political context - not if they're relevant and ambitious.
Why not write a book which is as sophisticated as a book for an adult, but is about the concerns that teenagers actually have?
That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems.
The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought.
Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.
If it's a good book, anyone will read it. I'm totally unashamed about still reading things I loved in my childhood.
