Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do.

While we read a novel, we are insane — bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices... Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.

In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane - bonkers. we believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.

When you read a book, the story definitely happens inside your head. When you listen, it seems to happen in a little cloud all around it, like a fuzzy knit cap pulled down over your eyes.

Sometimes I don't know whether Zelda and I are real or just characters in one of my novels.

If I'm engrossed in a book, I have to rearrange my thoughts before I can mingle with other people, because otherwise they might think I was strange.

Sometimes I don't know whether I'm real or whether I'm a character in one of my novels.

Als ik een boek lees, dat indruk op me maakt, moet ik in mezelf grondig orde scheppen, alvorens me onder de mensen te begeven, anders zou men van mij denken dat ik een wat rare geest had.

I’m beginning now even to see it in my own books which are written from many different points of view, very different personae, first person as a man, a child, a woman, a young person, an older person, there is the sense, looking back, that you are really writing one book all your life. Because there is this voyage of discovery of life.

Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?

Even as a kid, my memories are of books taking me out of myself.

The people in books become more real to you than any one in actual life.

In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself.