Quotes About Book Awards

#1. I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.

Joyce Carol Oates

#2. We need writers who know the difference between the production of a commodity and the practice of an art.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#3. Between frivolity and intentional mischief there is little difference, none in the results.

Ilka Chase

#4. What I eventually realized is that the real business of books is not done by awards committees or people who turn trees into paper or editors or agents or even writers. We're all just facilitators. The real business is done by readers.

John Green

#5. Adrienne Rich was one of the most widely-read and influential poets of her time, a leading feminist, known especially for her politically-engaged verse. Her best-known volume, "Diving into the Wreck," won the National Book Award in 1973.

Earl Scruggs

#6. The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.

Michael Moorcock

#7. By Soulfully understanding all you are - there is no need to fret about what to do next, or when.

Eleesha

#8. It is better to avoid than to run, better to run than to de-escalate, better to de-escalate than to fight, better to fight than to die.

Rory Miller

#9. It's better to be nominated for awards than not to be nominated for them, but of course to some degree such awards [National Book Award] are always subjective.

Charles Baxter

#10. No matter how many awards you've won or how many sales you've got, come the next book it's still a blank sheet of paper and you're still panicking like hell that you've got nothing new to say.

Ian Rankin

#11. At the time you've got skills and possessions,
train yourself to be able to survive without them.

Toba Beta

#12. Who do readers expect to see when they pick up this book? Who has won the Most Troubled Romantic Lead at the BookWorld Awards seventy-seven times in a row? Me. All me.

Jasper Fforde

#13. My father taught in the wise way which unfolds what lies in the child

Louisa May Alcott

#14. An award does not change the quality of a book.

Chris Van Allsburg

#15. My grandad always said, "You should never judge a book by its cover." And it's for that reason that he lost his job as chair of the British Book Cover Awards panel.

Stewart Lee

#16. I think hard times are coming. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries, the realists of a larger reality.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#17. I met Heinlein after 'The Forever War' had won the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He shook my hand and said he loved the book so much, he'd read it three times.

Joe Haldeman

#18. Ward: Which would you rather have, a National Book Award or a Hugo?
Le Guin: Oh, a Nobel, of course.
Ward: They don't give Nobel Awards in fantasy.
Le Guin: Maybe I can do something for peace.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#19. Beware the Sunday-morning faith that may get you through the week but not in heaven!

Mike Bryan

#20. This medal (the National Book Award) together with my American Express card, will identify me worldwide ... except at Bloomingdale's.

S.J Perelman