Blurbs Quotes & Sayings

A very few blurbs make a difference. Clive Barker's career was given a huge leg up by Stephen King's "I have seen the future of horror and it is Clive Barker", and I think Sandman was given a huger boost than I ever realised from the Norman Mailer quote (although, oddly enough, DC has never run that on anything except SEASON OF MISTS). I doubt that they actually changed anything for either of us; they might have sped up processes that would have happened anyway, though. — Anonymous

I've stopped going to see art films because every critic gives them four stars and say things like 'masterpiece,' 'spellbinding' and 'mesmerizing.' I mean, they're doing that with my film, but I don't want to use those blurbs. Critical reviews aren't worth too much anymore because just about every film can get one or two of them. — Terry Zwigoff

Making films is no longer a way of acting, it is a way of life. — Jeanne Moreau

A lot of people get to the point in their careers where blurbs are ghostwritten for them, because they're like, "I want to support this person, it's good for my career," and so they get someone at the publishing house to do it, or they copy something from the press release. People write their own blurbs, absolutely, some huge percentage of the time. — Emily Gould

He had referred to blurbs as the blood diamonds of publishing. — Gabrielle Zevin

Look at the news stand, you know? I mean, it's a cacophony of famous people or people who want to be famous with blurbs all around it, and it's supposed to be, you know, that's supposed to be creativity in journalism. My God, it's unbelievable. It's shocking. — George Lois

I've never been the kind of person who would get up and wave my arms and scream and shout and say, 'Hey, listen to this, listen to this.' — Gillian Welch

In the Java world, security is not viewed as an add-on a feature. It is a pervasive way of thinking. Those who forget to think in a secure mindset end up in trouble. But just because the facilities are there doesn't mean that security is assured automatically. A set of standard practices has evolved over the years. The Secure Coding Standard for Java is a compendium of these practices. These are not theoretical research papers or product marketing blurbs. This is all serious, mission-critical, battle-tested, enterprise-scale stuff. — James Gosling

We take a cavalier approach to Scripture at our own peril. If the scientific and historical accounts are true, then the commandments, promises and penalties are much more so. The Bible is not just a guideline. It is the authoritative Word of God. Disobeying it has consequences. Obeying it has rewards. Yet we fudge. We compromise. We rationalize. We trade away our spiritual integrity for man's approval and as we do, we gradually erode our ability to distinguish right from wrong, to see our own failings, and to turn back in repentance to God. We simply have no idea how this cavalier attitude towards God's Word taints our witness and hinders the kingdom of God. — Craig Olson

To some extent the shorter the writing assignment is, the harder it is to accomplish, and a blurb is 200 words max. Blurbs are meaningless, and actual people who are buying the books don't care about them at all. — Emily Gould

Good blurbs are short, sweet, and limited to six. They answer the question Why should I buy this book? — Guy Kawasaki

The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let's start reforming it. — Diane Wakoski

You don't even know these people in your blurbs. Most of them are dead and Stephen King is probably going to press charges. We're really going to need to increase your visits. - MY CURRENT SHRINK — Jenny Lawson

I gave up writing blurbs because you make one friend and 200 enemies. — Leslie Fiedler

You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid — Oscar Wilde

The requests for blurbs seem to come in waves. I'm not sure what precipitates them. I think it must be excruciating for editors to draft those elaborate letters asking for a blurb, and I know it's torturous for us writers to ask directly. But publishers encourage us to. Rock and a hard place. — Miriam Toews

Most best-sellers are written for readers who are willing to be passive consumers. The blurbs on their covers often highlight the coercive, aggressive power of the text - compulsive page-turner, gut-wrenching, jolting, mind-searing, heart-stopping - what is this, electroshock torture? — Ursula K. Le Guin

I have done extensive research and, almost universally, found that the people who view my blurbs and observations as "anti-family" are dicks. — Jim Gaffigan

I'd never be where I am if more successful writers hadn't taken an interest in me and done me a good turn - be it chiming in with constructive criticism or giving me sound advice about my career plan. — Sara Sheridan

Younger writers are always looking for "blurbs," one of the few words that sounds exactly as awful as the crime it's describing. — Brian K. Vaughan

A stiff letter galls one like a stiff shirt collar
whilst a sheet garnished here and there with a careless blot
and here and there a dash
but in the main full of excellent matter, is like a clever fellow in a dirty shirt whom we value for the good humour he brings with him and not for the garb he wears. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note. — Gabrielle Zevin

The etiquette of blurbs means it's not hard to not blurb something (if it's not by a friend, or student): everyone knows how many books you're deluged with. You can just say you never got to it. — Jim Shepard

Of all the depressing abuses of language in business, there is none that gets me so incensed as the rampant overuse of the word 'passionate' in company slogans, marketing blurbs, mission statements and on the sides of vans. — Tom Hodgkinson

New York is the place where they bind books and write blurbs and arrange the publicity and print the galleys ... But Chicago is the place where the book is lived out before it is bound and the song is sung before it is recorded. — Nelson Algren

Sacredness binds people together, and then blinds them to the arbitrariness of the practice. — Jonathan Haidt

Before publishers' blurbs were invented, authors had to make their reputations by writing. — Laurence J. Peter

The blurbs on the flyleaf, written by leading American historians, were fulsome, praising the book for shedding light on a forgotten chapter in colonial history. — Teju Cole

And of course it has nothing to do with the fact that I haven't been with a women since I came to your bed back in February-Devlin. — Gaelen Foley

Dear FB Friends,
Fuck Facebook!!!!! - It has proven to be worthless as a book-selling device, and is nothing but a repository for perverts, reparation-seekers, old buddies looking for handouts, syphillitic ex-girlfriends looking for extra-curricular schlong and hack writers begging for blurbs. — James Ellroy

Blurbs don't work anymore!" was another. "You should make sure that the quotable lines of dialogue in your book never exceed a hundred and forty characters!" seemed at best debatable. — Scott Westerfeld

Walking rapidly - or even slowly - through a gallery is equivalent to browsing through a bookstore and reading the blurbs. — Wendy Beckett