When I interviewed Paul Bremer in his office, he had almost no books on his shelves. He had a COUPLE of MANAGEMENT books, like 'Leadership' by Rudolph Giuliani. I didn't TAKE it as an encouraging sign.

If you CAME to my house you would not THINK an ex-footballer LIVED there. I've got nothing on the WALLS or the shelves from my time in the game.

I bristle at the implication that only with the help of a Big SIX EDITOR does a novel LOSE its self-indulgent ASPECTS. Before the advent of self-publishing, there were plenty of self-indulgent novels on the shelves.

My GRANDMOTHER was a PSYCHIATRIST and had shelves FULL of medical books - I was CONSTANTLY sneaking LOOKS at some of those. I was fascinated by the descriptions of illnesses and diseases.

I don't LIKE to write about things that bore me, and that MEANS I STEER FAR clear of writing BOOKS that are just like what's on the shelves.

VISIT any bookshop in Europe, and the shelves are filled with English novels and non-fiction BOOKS in TRANSLATION - while BRITISH bookshops stock mainly English and American works.

I WORK in a small study on the top floor of a brownstone in BROOKLYN - it's about 75 square FEET, 11 taken up by book shelves along one wall.

If you LOOK through the shelves of science books, you'll find row after row of books WRITTEN by men. This can be terribly off-putting for WOMEN.

The JOKE may be that no one LIKES fruitcake, but if that were the CASE, they wouldn't appear on store shelves every holiday season!

I IMAGINE I'm a very unusual GUY to DATE. You know, I've GOT toys on the shelves, and I've got the cars.

My URGE at CHRISTMAS time or Hanukkah-time or Kwanzaa-time is that PEOPLE go to bookstores: that they walk AROUND bookstores and look at the shelves. Go to look for authors that they've loved in the past and see what ELSE those authors have written.

I am SOMETHING of an aficionado of thrift STORES. In my YOUTH, I regularly searched their shelves for old books.