Quotes About Book Reviewers

#1. Q: What literary complexities do you find most interesting? That is, what do you like most to "solve," so to speak, as a novelist?
A: One wishes to create characters who will speak directly to the minds of comparative literature professors and intelligent book reviewers.

Gilbert Sorrentino

#2. But in the book," I say, "the mockingbird is supposed to be a symbol of innocence. That's why it's a sin to kill one."
"Who says it's a symbol of innocence?" asks Mort.
"Teachers," I tell him. "Book reviewers, critics --"
"Wikipedia," Elena calls from behind the window display.

Paul Acampora

#3. Book reviewers are little old ladies of both sexes.

John O'Hara

#4. You don't want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason that they haven't done what I do. Most book reviewers haven't written 11 novels. Many of them haven't written one.

John Irving

#5. It never stops me from saying what I want to say about Ethiopia, the fact that a tour company is paid for me to go there. Book reviewers don't pay for the books they review.

John Gimlette

#6. [P]ersonally, I know I'd prefer to read an honest review by someone who has no reason to lie, than a book reviewer who has an employer and a publishing house to keep happy.

Catherine Ryan Howard

#7. Religion embarrasses the commentators. It is offbounds. An editor of the old Life magazine once assigned me a book on religion with remark that I was the only 'religious nut' - his term for a believer - in his stable of regular reviewers.

Garry Wills

#8. Book reviewer: Very often a writer who has never been published taking out their frustrations on a writer who has.

Raul Ramos Y Sanchez

#9. Crime isn't pretty, only fashionably dressed.

S.W. Frank

#10. I believe passionately in preemptive pessimism, especially before a book comes out. I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales, and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.

Antony Beevor

#11. I don't think anybody reads a book of poetry front to back. Editors and reviewers only. I don't think anybody else does.

Billy Collins

#12. I've sold too many books to get good reviews anymore. There's a lot of jealousy, because [reviewers] think they can write a good novel or a best-seller and get frustrated when they can't. I've learned to despise them.

John Grisham

#13. Reviewers do not read books with much care ... their profession is more given to stupidity and malice and literary ignorance even than the profession of novelist.

Anthony Burgess

#14. In my first story, 'Mr. Mysterious & Company' ... I was asked to take out some of the humor because editors were afraid reviewers would dismiss the book as a joke. Today, humor is enjoyed and no longer regarded as literary brummagem.

Sid Fleischman

#15. Richard Price got a million dollar advance on one fake film book based on a paragraph outline and is able to seduce gullible White reviewers who know less about ghetto life than he. The New York Times has devoted more space to Price's tourist, ghetto writing than to any Black writer in history.

Ishmael Reed

#16. Memoir today is like one big game of misery poker: The more outlandish, outrageous, or just plain out-there the recounted life, the more likely the book is to attract the attention of reviewers, talk-show bookers, and, ultimately, the public.

Ben Yagoda

#17. I picture several reviewers of my own books as passing a long future lodged between Brutus and Judas in the jaws of Satan.

Stephen Jay Gould

#18. With a poetry book I can send 100 copies out to reviewers and other people, and even do it in advance and get their response. It's difficult with iPad: how do you send it out for free, and how do you even disseminate it before it goes into their store?

Felix Dennis

#19. A writer hopes never to offend, but if he must, pray let him offend the gods before the reviewers.

Chila Woychik

#20. As a children's author, reviewers are generally very nice to you. I only ever wrote one adult book and received such a kicking for it that I was in trauma for the next six months.

Anthony Horowitz

#21. Besides, it was all very well to criticise the works of others, but in fact it was quite hard, he discovered, to tell a story.

Iain Pears

#22. It is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book.

Edward Abbey

#23. In my ideal world, my next novel would have a first printing of, say, 2,500 hardcovers for reviewers, libraries, collectors, and autograph hounds. The publisher could print more copies if they get low. And simultaneously, or six weeks later, the book would be available in paperback.

Christina Baker Kline

#24. You want to get your book to press. You rush it through. Revision number twenty - done. Do you really need twenty more? Yes. A half-baked book is a half-birthed child. It aborts, is put on life support; reviewers line the hall to pull the plug.

Chila Woychik

#25. The preface is the most important part of a book. Even reviewers read a preface.

Philip Guedalla

#26. That said, wow. This book is just so full of nasty and kinky encounters and voyeuristic thrills that it blew me away.
Sylvia Storm E Read Erotica Reviews

Sasha Holden

#27. Adieu, sucky speed-reading critics and reviewers!"
Terry Dare, gothic author in Blatty's book "Elsewhere", just before he crosses over.

William Peter Blatty

#28. I am not alone in bearing grudges against reviewers who have doomed a book's chances because they've missed the point, the tone, everything ...

Ann Beattie

#29. If the book's bad enough, they'll publish it, and if it's bad bad enough, the daily reviewers will love it, and it'll sell.

James Purdy

#30. There is a secret and wholesome conviction in the heart of every man or woman who has written a book that it should be no easy matter for an intelligent reader to lay down that book unfinished. There is a pardonable impression among reviewers that half an hour in its company is sufficient.

Agnes Repplier

#31. I do not believe writers should read reviews of their own books, and I do not. If one is not careful one is soon writing to please reviewers and not their audience or themselves.

Louis L'Amour

#32. Don't let anyone discourage you from writing. If you become a professional writer, there are plenty of editors, reviewers, critics, and book buyers to do that.

Jane Yolen