I'm sometimes willing to put in vast, even inordinate amounts of time if I find a project that interests me.

Since I make my living as a literary journalist, not a book scout, I spend inordinate amounts of time either reading or writing.

Close friends, or those in my pay, sometimes call me a literary polymath, while others say that I'm just a shallow dilettante, superficial and breezy, with a faux-naif style.

When a publisher spends an inordinate amount on an acquisition, it will do everything in its power to make that project a market success.

Fiction is a house with many stately mansions, but also one in which it is wise, at least sometimes, to swing from the chandeliers.

For even the ordinary well-read person, the French Enlightenment is largely restricted to the three big-name philosophes: Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire.