I believe this is a very important book for people who want to know what it means to be a writer.
–Barry Gifford "The most distinguished American writer of [his] generation . . . indeed its only author . . . with any claim to greatness."
-The Spectator (UK) "One of the great writers of our time."
-San Francisco Chronicle Nabokov once said 'I divide literature into two categories, the books I wish I had written, and the books I have written.' In the former category I would put books by Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Paul Auster.
–Umberto Eco (in the Paris Review)