If Shirley Hazzard had indeed prepared a “putative remark,” as flagged in her diary, she must have decided to set it aside. Instead, she addressed Stephen King’s words directly: “I don’t think giving us a reading list of those who are most read at this moment is much of a satisfaction,” she said. “We read in all the ages.” We have “mysterious inclinations. We have our own intuitions, our individuality toward what we want to read, and we developed that from childhood.” Even the most ancient works, she continued, in moving us, become part of our immediate experience. The most important thing that literature brings is “Pleasure … the true pleasure.” Her comments were spontaneous, unrehearsed, but at the same time this was a speech she could have made at any stage in her adult life, long given over to the deep rewards of reading and of writing.