2.
With books at least, the best experiences are not when you find what you were looking for, but when something quite different finds you, takes you by surprise, shifts your tastes to new territory.
Tim Parks
3.
Always read with a pen in your hands, not beside you on the table, but actually in your hand, ready, armed ... Put a question mark by everything you find suspect. Underline anything you really appreciate. Feel free to write 'splendid,' but also, 'I don't believe a word of it.' And even 'bullshit.'
Tim Parks
6.
If you want to appeal to people of different languages and cultures, you have to move toward tropes that are universally recognized. Games, references, subtleties that only work in your language are hardly useful.
Tim Parks