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"[Gore Vidal] has complete sets of those writers who have influenced him deeply, such as Henry James, who dominates his study in the sumptuous New York Edition, with prefaces to each volume by the author. 'You don't need a creative-writing degree,' Vidal once said to me. 'You need to study those prefaces. Everything a novelist must know is there.' "

- Jay Parini, in an interesting essay on his fascination with other people's bookshelves. (Link courtesy Critical Mass.)