"My dinners have never interfered with my business. They have been my recreation. . . A public banquet, if eaten with thought and care, is no more of a strain than a dinner at home."

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Without the book business it would be difficult or impossible for true books to find their true readers and without that solitary (and potentially subversive) alone with a book the whole razzmatazz of prizes, banquets, television spectaculars, bestseller lists, even literature courses, editors and authors, are all worthless. Unless a book finds lovers among those solitary readers, it will not live . . . or live for long.

— John McGahern