Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.

When male authors write love stories the heroine tends to end up dead.

Youre a hopeless romantic said Faber. It would be funny if it were not serious. Its not books you need its some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the parlor families today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors but are not. Nono its not books at all youre looking for Take it where you can find it in old phonograph records old motion pictures and in old friends look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldnt know this of course you still cant understand what i mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right thats what counts.

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon womans inconstancy. Songs and proverbs all talk of womans fickleness. But perhaps you will say these were all written by men.Perhaps I shall. Yes yes if you please no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

My headll explode if I continue with this escapism.

V-Dayif you need this one day in a year to show everyone else you truly care for your loved one I think its quite stupid. I hate this commercialism. Its all artificial and has nothing to do with real love.

It starts so young and Im angry about that. The garbage were taught. About love about whats romantic. Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and drastic unhappiness after The End Why are sick and dangerous personality types so often shown a passionate and tragic and something to be longed for when those are the very ones you should run for your life from Think about it. Heathcliff. Romeo. Don Juan. Jay Gatsby. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. From the rigid control freak in The Sound of Music to all the bad boys some woman goes running to the airport to catch in the last minute of every romantic comedy. She should let him leave. Your time is so valuable and look at these guys--depressive and moody and violent and immature and self-centered. And what about the big daddy of them all Prince Charming What was his secret life We dont know anything about him other then he looks good and comes to the rescue.

The love of learning the sequestered nooksAnd all the sweet serenity of books

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.

I have a handful of prayers that I pray all the time... One is that God will put my books into the right hands at the right times. Ive prayed this prayer thousands of times and God has answered it in dramatic fashion countless times. The right book in the right hands at the right time can save a marriage avert a mistake demand a decision plant a seed conceive a dream solve a problem and prompt a prayer. That is why I write. And thats why for me a book sold is not a book sold a book sold is a prayer answered. I dont know the name and situation of every reader but God does and thats all that matters.