“Every good book should be entertaining. A good book will be more; it must not be less. Entertainment….is like a qualifying examination. If a fiction can’t provide that, we may be excused from inquiry into its higher qualities.”  (C.S. Lewis)

“I got into this row, big, at the novel conference at Harvard, when…we had a novelist get up and speak about the responsibilities of the novelist. I was with Anthony West on the stage and I was gradually getting into hysterics…..”All right,” I said at the end of it, “If there are any of my students here I’d like them to remember that writing is fun.” That’s the reason you do it, because you enjoy it, and you read it because you enjoy it. You do it for exactly the same reason that you paint pictures or play with the kids. It’s a creative activity.”  (Frank O’Connor)