Quotes About Bad Books

#1. There is no book so bad it does not contain something good.

Pliny

#2. I'm really bad at describing my books. Journalists like to have things like "It's The Terminator Meets the Seven Dwarfs." And I can't do that with my books. If I could, I probably wouldn't write them.

Charles De Lint

#3. People are dying and my generation just does not care. Including me. But I want to care. I really want to. I want to care so bad.

Charles Yu

#4. if there are books perhaps it won't be all that bad.

Jo Walton

#5. That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

Gore Vidal

#6. I like Jo Nesbo and Hakan Nesser. There are so many good books in the world. I don't want to spend time reading bad crime novels.

Maj Sjowall

#7. I do not care a fig for any woman that knows even what an author means.

William Hazlitt

#8. Life, as the signs in the liquor stores say, is too short to drink bad wine. And summer is too short to read bad books.

David Frum

#9. I like writing books. I'd rather be at home with my wife. I can write, take a break, come out, have a glass of tea, give my wife a kiss, and go back in and write some more. It's not so bad. I am really lucky.

Gene Wilder

#10. Television isn't inherently good or bad. You go to a bookstore, there are how many thousands of books, but how many of those do you want? Five? Television's the same way. If you're going to show people stuff, television is the way to go. Words and pictures show things.

Bill Nye

#11. Digital books are in some ways hastening the lazy, solipsistic narcissism of our culture. We use our gadgets as proxies for other people and genuine human interaction. And yes, I think that's bad.

Jason Merkoski

#12. You want war??
...
Out there you can find books, films about the war how brutal is it. If you disire for more... it sounds like you are cruel, so far I can understand it you are the bad guy, aren't you?

Deyth Banger

#13. They were daughters of the sky. Luck belonged to them - never bad, often good, sometimes hard.

C.J. Milbrandt

#14. History is written by the winners. The books say the Indians were bad guys and the whites just needed a little land. It's like, Excuse me, let me take your car. I'm discovering it. I'm putting my flag on your windshield.

Mario Van Peebles

#15. In books, often the bad guys have a story too, and sometimes it is just as tragic as the hero's.

Jennifer Megan Varnadore

#16. He had read books, newspapers and magazines. He knew that if you ran away you sometimes met bad people who did bad things to you; but he had also read fairy tales, so he knew that there were kind people out there, side by side with the monsters.

Neil Gaiman

#17. My father was sleepless most of his life. So by the age of five, I was awake with him all night long, watching bad television or we'd lie in the same bed, and I'd read my comic books while he read his latest spy or mystery novel.

Sherman Alexie

#18. Having reached 451 books as of now doesn't help the situation. If I were to be dying now, I would be murmuring, "Too bad! Only four hundred fifty-one." (Those would be my next-to-last words. The last ones will be: "I love you, Janet.") [They were. -Janet.]

Isaac Asimov

#19. Children simply don't make the distinction; a book is either good or bad. And some of the books they think are good are very, very bad indeed.

Mark Haddon

#20. Now whither does THIS trail lead?" Kaa's voice was gentler. "Not a moon since there was a Manling with a knife threw stones at my head and called me bad little tree-cat names, because I lay asleep in the open.

Rudyard Kipling

#21. I have a tendency to face my bad fantasies in my books.

Siri Hustvedt

#22. In order to pronounce a book bad it is not enough to discover that it elicits no good response from ourselves, for that might be our fault.

C.S. Lewis

#23. She looked at her shelves, filled with books in which the bad stuff that happened to people was caused by things like witches who lured people into the woods. In a weird way, the world seemed to make more sense that way.

Anne Ursu

#24. When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.
[As attributed by Alastair Reid in Neruda and Borges, The New Yorker, June 24, 1996; as well as in The Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, July 7, 1986]

Jorge Luis Borges

#25. Anything that spreads books and brings about more books, I would say it is good. Good medicine, not bad.

Jenny Colgan

#26. Writers just play out their fantasies in their books. They are often very unstable, tricky people, Bertie. Writers are usually very bad at real life and feel that they have to create imaginary lives to make up for it.

Alexander McCall Smith

#27. Reviews are for readers, not writers. If I get a bad one, I shrug it off. If I get a good one, I don't believe it

William Meikle

#28. It is a fact that, being a quick reader, apart from enabling a person to study good books such as Macaulay and Gibbon, enables a person to read a lot of bad books as well.

Antonia Fraser

#29. There is no such thing as a bad book, I just like some books more than others ...

Chris Geiger

#30. Especially beware of bad books; and for nothing in the world let your soul be carried away by certain writings which weak brains admire, because of some vain subtleties which they find therein.

Francis De Sales

#31. My ambition was to embrace those general qualities that Ernest Hemingway, a former newspaperman, once said should be present in all good books: 'the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.'

Pete Hamill

#32. Only bad books have good endings.
If a book is any good, it's ending is always bad - because you don't want the book to end.

Pseudonymous Bosch

#33. I was really sorry to hear that her parents split up. But she said it wasn't that bad. She actually said it happened a lot. She said the good thing was they had plenty of extra body parts around the house to put them back together.

Herobrine Books

#34. Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored

Vikram Seth

#35. My writing legacy would be my true depiction of life; exploring the entire colorful spectrum of people, both good and bad, capturing it in words and exposing it to all cultures in a respectful manner - In a way that would stand the test of time.

Diane Martin

#36. Thomas Mann used to write education novels and now you can write an education memoir, and there are all these memoirs coming out now about people's relationships with books. Like anything else, these can be good or bad. The genre doesn't make it good or bad, it's the execution.

Marco Roth

#37. Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.

Evelyn Waugh

#38. Prepare yourself for some bad news: Ronald Reagan's library just burned down. Both books were destroyed. But the real horror: He hadn't finished coloring either one of them.

Gore Vidal

#39. Reading good books spoils you for enjoying bad books.

Annie Barrows

#40. We do not so much want books for good people, as books which will make bad ones better.

Hannah More

#41. I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children ... do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is the gateway drug to other books you may prefer.

Neil Gaiman

#42. What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.
American novels, answered Lord Henry.

Oscar Wilde

#43. But when you read books you almost feel like you're out there in the world. Like you're going on this adventure right with the main character. At least, that's the way I do it. It's actually not that bad. Even if it is mad nerdy.

Matt De La Pena

#44. The supper was like most Parisian suppers: silence at first, then a burst of unintelligible chatter, then witticisms that were mostly vapid, false rumors, bad reasonings, a little politics and a great deal of slander; they even spoke about new books.

Voltaire

#45. It is a good thing to read books, and need not be a bad thing to write them, but in any case, it is a pious thing to collect them.

Frederick Locker-Lampson

#46. Every time I have a bad day, I'll just find a corner, bring out my book and then everything starts to feel better.

Wency June Z. Libot

#47. Writing a NYT bestseller was a delightful experience. But there are many books which are read by few that should be read and reread by many, as well as books bought by many that are hardly worth the ink.

Ron Brackin

#48. I keep three kinds of books: those I want to read, those I want to reread, and those I want to reopen just to confirm how bad they are.

Sarah Manguso

#49. I learned little save that most of the deeds, good and bad both, incurring opprobrium or plaudits or reward either, within the scope of man's abilities, had already been performed and were to be learned about only from books.

William Faulkner

#50. An intense temperament has convinced me to teach not only from books but from what I have learned from experience. So I try to impress upon young doctors and graduate students that tumultuousness, if coupled to discipline and a cool mind, is not such a bad sort of thing.

Kay Redfield Jamison

#51. Antonio-
"Just in time, Pete. Five more minutes of reading this and she'd have been in a coma."
Peter-
"Are we such bad company that you'd rather hide out in here reading that old thing?

Kelley Armstrong

#52. According to the perverse aesthetics of artistic guilty pleasure, certain books and movies are so bad - so crudely conceived, despicably motivated and atrociously executed - that they're actually rather good.

Walter Kirn

#53. Writers: read books. Read good books. Read bad books. Learn what does and does not work.

Kira Hawke

#54. she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy.

Terry Pratchett

#55. The response to my books from my East Coast friends has been wildly various, running the gamut from 'bad' to 'very bad.' (Is there another gamut?)

Edward Abbey

#56. Most bad books get that way because their authors are engaged in trying to justify themselves. If a vain author is an alcoholic, then the most sympathetically portrayed character in his book will be an alcoholic. This sort of thing is very boring for outsiders.

Stephen Vizinczey

#57. Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Alfred Whitney Griswold

#58. I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad.

Mark Haddon

#59. Writes very good books; about very bad things.

Christian Cipollini

#60. Sad that there is books that are based on bad events that has happened. But there is books that has been based on really good events. I like to read the ones that are based on both.

Dawn Huntsman

#61. Reading had always been, through bad, boring, or better times, his best connection to humans.

Dan Groat

#62. Too bad you got so bogged down in books. You've got the spirit of a warrior.

Richelle Mead

#63. Remember the good hours when the words are flowing well. And never mind the bad hours; there is no life without them.

Herman Wouk

#64. The biggest mistake in puppy training, which is also the most common one, is punishing the dog for bad behavior.

Vivaco Books

#65. Alister McGrath has now written two books with my name in the title. The poet W. B. Yeats, when asked to say something about bad poets who made a living by parasitizing him, wrote the splendid line, 'was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Richard Dawkins

#66. Batman: What do you think Alfred?
Alfred: I think you're a bad driver.
Batman: I've got Lucius looking into another car-
Alfred: Well you're going to need one if you actually want to catch these blokes. Tea's on the table behind you.

Geoff Johns

#67. You must learn not what people round you consider good or bad, but to act in life as your conscience bids you. An untrammelled conscience will always know more than all the books and teachers put together.

G.I. Gurdjieff

#68. Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.

Joe Haldeman

#69. You can't write a children's book that takes more than five or six minutes to read, because it will drive the parents batty. It has to be compact. Nobody thinks about the parents when they write these stupid books. I could write longer children's books, but it would actually be bad if I did.

Michael Ian Black

#70. If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.

Arthur Schopenhauer

#71. There are only two kinds of books
good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.

Edward Abbey

#72. When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?' 'You wouldn't want to. That's what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.

Jeanne DuPrau

#73. He [David Foster Wallace] compares raising children to raising books, you should take pride in the work you do inside a family and not from how they make out in the world. "It's good to want a child to do well, but it's bad to want that glory to reflect back on you," is what he says.

David Lipsky

#74. There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women.

Anatole France

#75. a proof that good books, no more than good men, do always survive the bad.

Henry Fielding

#76. I always try to give good ratings to books I have read unless it is really bad. Being a writer I know how a bad rating feels. Sometimes it is better to encourage a writer rather than discourage them. After all the next book they write could be a World Renown novel like Harry Potter.

William Roach

#77. Five more minutes of reading this and she'd have been in a coma.

Kelly Armstrong

#78. An author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attack: for though all are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them.

Matthew Gregory Lewis

#79. Well, every art requires appreciation, doesn't it? I mean people who paint, sculpt, or write books want an audience. that's the reason they're doing it for, and it's the same when you're a cook. You need somebody who savours it, not one who just says, 'Oh it's not bad.

Margaret Powell

#80. Once you've put one of his [Henry James] books down, you simply can't pick it up again.

Mark Twain

#81. Nobody's favorite movie is some dark, dysfunctional slasher story. Everybody's favorite song is a sentimental song. So why all of a sudden is it bad to be sentimental in books?

Mitch Albom

#82. There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films.

Christopher Hampton

#83. I have always been accused of taking the things I love - football, of course, but also books and records - much too seriously, and I do feel a kind of anger when I hear a bad record, or when someone is lukewarm about a book that means a lot to me.

Nick Hornby

#84. Good books are irrefutable, and bad books refute themselves.

Remy De Gourmont

#85. Nothing ... They're from nothing,' he said. 'They came in the book ... I found the book and inside were these flowers ... They were in the book when I bought it ... I bought it used ... Because they meant something.
'To someone else.'
'To someone.

Aimee Bender

#86. Superhero movies and comic books teach a lesson that runs directly counter to the culture-of-violence idea: guns are for bad guys too cowardly to fight like men.

Stephen King

#87. Do you speak perfectly in your native language? No, and you don't blame yourself for making mistakes in your native tongue. So why feel bad when you make mistakes while speaking a foreign language?

Rocket Learning Books

#88. The comments I most appreciate come from ordinary readers who've happened on one of my books at some time of stress in their lives, and who actually credit the book with helping them through a bad time. It's happened a few times in forty years.

Fred Saberhagen

#89. Read good books. Read bad books - and figure out why you don't like them. Then don't do it when you write. If you are a science fiction or fantasy writer, going to conventions and attending panels is very useful.

Patricia Briggs

#90. Thou shalt not might' reach the head but it takes 'Once upon a time' to reach the heart. Also: We need stories so much that we're even willing to read bad books to get them.

Philip Pullman

#91. I don't care what people are saying about me, good or bad, in blogs or on Twitter or in the media. There will always be people who don't like you and don't like your books. Ignore them.

J.A. Konrath

#92. Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.

F Scott Fitzgerald

#93. Today I am revealing the exciting new book by Author Maggie Carpenter. Stay tuned, because it will be on here soon!

Maggie Carpenter

#94. I think writing a book with film in mind is a way to write a really bad books. You can usually tell those books that are packaged to become films.

Charlize Theron

#95. Good News: I'm rich! Bad News: Too much to list!

Minecrafty Family Books

#96. The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.

Leo Tolstoy

#97. Great books can be ruined by bad writers.

Travis Simmons

#98. Lieutenant Trotta wasn't experienced enough to know that uncouth peasant boys with noble hearts exist in real life and that a lot of truths about the living world are recorded in bad books; they are just badly written.

Joseph Roth

#99. Just as good books give me the joys of being alive, bad novels depress me, and as I notice this sentiment coming from the pages, I stop. I also do not hesitate to walk out of a movie house if the film is bad.

Orhan Pamuk

#100. It's literature. It's all books. There are good books and bad books. Literary fiction can be bad, and so can sci-fi. Sci-fi can be wonderful and so can literary fiction. As long as it's a good book, who cares? Hold my attention; that's all I ask. Make me believe.

Margaret Atwood