What Are Book Review Quotes & Sayings

Remind your humans of the traditional value of the newspaper by helping them to read every time they sit down with one. If there are no newspapers available, shred mail, magazines, checkbooks and other documents to point out the value of stocking less permanent media in the feline household. If your computer skills are up to the task, preorder five years of home delivery of the Sunday New York Times. Now there's a paper you can spend hours killing. Save the magazine and book review for enjoyment later in the week. — Michael Ray Taylor

I have begun in old age to understand just how oddly we all are put together. We are so proud of our autonomy that we seldom if ever realize how generous we are to ourselves, and just how stingy with others. One of the booby traps of freedom
which is bordered on all sides by isolation
is that we think so well of ourselves. I now see that I have helped myself to the best cuts at life's banquet. — Saul Bellow

When someone writes a book review, they obviously already self-identify as a writer. I mean, they are. They're writers, they're critics, and they're writing about a book about a writer who's a critic. So I think it's really hard for people to distance themselves from what they're criticizing. — Chuck Klosterman

Here's to real heroes, not the ones who carry us off into the sunset but the ones who help us choose our princes. - commentary on Castles on the Sand — E.M. Tippetts

Combining the experience of a seasoned university president with the analysis of a respected legal scholar, Derek Bok explores what he concludes are 'signs of excessive commercialization in every part of the university.' His somber assessment of the current state of athletics, scientific research, and distance education, and his call for review and restraint, should engage the attention of every faculty senate in the country. He has given us a timely, candid, courageous, and important book. — Frank H. T. Rhodes

I rarely read or buy a book because of a review. — Jim Harrison

This book (Jarod Kintz's book) is trash. I mean, I assume it is, because that's where I found it while scrounging for lunch. However, I must admit that I haven't read it. I would have, but I am homeless, mainly due to my illiteracy (though Big Government, Keynesian monetary policy, and my struggle with alcoholism certainly played a large role). — Dora J. Arod

See Amazon's bio on don loedding and a review of his first book of short stories"The Search For the Bearded Clam" and read inside "Global Warming:The Iceman Cometh". — Donald R. Loedding

The novels that get praised in the NY Review of Books aren't worth reading. Ninety-seven percent of science fiction is adolescent rubbish, but good science fiction is the best and only literature of our times. — Robert Anton Wilson

Like many of the people quoted on this dust-cover, I have not read Carl King's book. I am confident, however, that my review still applies: So, You're a Creative Genius is the best book available on modern cartography. — Heather Anne Campbell

I'm interested in so many different things and I'd like to cover a lot of territory. I'm trying to see my show as the Sunday 'Times.' You have the Arts & Leisure section, you have the Op-Ed page, you have the Book Review ... even the Style section has those wonderful essays about relationships. — Joy Behar

I was a latecomer to romance, although I did read gothics. My father used to work for the 'Fort Worth Star-Telegram,' and their book reviewer, author Leonard Sanders, would pass on the gothics for my dad to give to me since Leonard didn't review gothics. I gobbled up books by Mary Stewart, Madeleine Brent, Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney. — Lori Wilde

Readers have the right to say whatever the fuck they want about a book. Period. They have that right. If they hate the book because the MC says the word "delicious" and the reader believes it's the Devil's word and only evil people use it, they can shout from the rooftops "This book is shit and don't read it" if they want. If they want to write a review entirely about how much they hate the cover, they can if they want. If they want to make their review all about how their dog Foot Foot especially loved to pee on that particular book, they can."
[Blog entry, January 9, 2012] — Stacia Kane

It's not often that you see this level of complexity in the erotic romance genre. This felt more on par with something written by leading authors in the mainstream suspense genre. There is intrigue, magic, drama ... and that's just the first chapter! Once I started reading, I couldn't put the book down.
From Just Erotic Romance Review Publications, on Soulmate's Touch — Emma Paul

Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom I should have talked before I dared to write it. I never launch any little essay without the hope - and the fear, because the encounter may also be embarrassing - that I shall draw a letter that begins, 'Dear Mr. Hitchens, it seems that you are unaware that ... ' It is in this sense that authorship is collaborative with 'the reader.' And there's no help for it: you only find out what you ought to have known by pretending to know at least some of it already.
It doesn't matter how obscure or arcane or esoteric your place of publication may be: some sweet law ensures that the person who should be scrutinizing your work eventually does do so. — Christopher Hitchens

A week or so ago I did a two hour book review in Baltimore Maryland. — Betty Hill

I never can understand why people take the time to leave a negative review on a book or piece of artwork. There are other ways for you to find outlets in the world. — K.L. Adams

Reviewing books is all about coziness. It is all of it a kind of caucus race. Women review women, Jewish writers review and praise Jewish writers, blacks review blacks, etc. — Alexander Theroux

It is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book. — Edward Abbey

PAIN was no longer a cause of suffering, but a source of pleasure, Because they were redeeming humanity from its sins. Pain becomes joy, the meaning of life, pleasure.. — Paulo Coelho

Talk about something else. Tell me about this book you are writing."
"What book?" I say. Then : "Oh, I know what you mean. I am not doing that anymore. I couldn't finish._
I don't think he knows, not really. Not yet.
In my haste to finish this story before death overtakes me, inevitably I have left out many things, and often I have expresses myself inelegantly, and no doubt here and there I have said more than I meant to. When you return, my dear type writer, we will review what we have done, and add this and subtract that. This work has become my hobby and my consolation, and I enjoy it. — Phillip Margulies

If you are looking for a hate book you have come to the wrong place here. This book may be full of fact and discussion and even argument but it is out of concern, a concern that is not subject to some group partisan issues. It has opinion as well and this is most certainly what many critics will call many things in this book to the point that there will be whole essays of review that are just diatribes of psychological issues on both sides. — Leviak B. Kelly

As a publisher what you are trying to build is a long life for a book, to help it find its readers in many different ways, whether or not it made this list or got that review, etc. I'm sure some of that thinking has been useful to me as a writer as well. — Danielle Dutton

i really like when someone reads my book and then review and rate it. this is very important to me because it shows me where i stand as an author and where i can improve as a writer. — Robert Trouble Johnson

I have my first review this is exciting
I write a passage to introduce the book and want to share it on SNS .
As below words,hope you can give me some advice.

" Want to share a book with all of you,my friends .So luck to read this book.
He is not a famous writer but all story is he's real experience,how to be abuse by his mother,
how to overcome learn disablity ,how to be a good father in life and how to get a middle class life
in US now.The purpose to write this book is that he want to help someone who have same experience
with him and encourage those people,you are not alone,there are many people have experienced
similar things,you can overcome it and you deserved a good life. This book can help us to avoid many
mistake when we as a parent . — Shawn Woods

The people who review my books, generally, are kind of youngish culture writers who aspire to write books, or write opinion pieces about what they think of Neil Young, or why they quit watching ER or whatever. And because of that, I think there's a lot of people who write about my books with the premise of, "Why this guy? Why not me?" — Chuck Klosterman

One cannot review a bad book without showing off. — W. H. Auden

every time a reader leaves a book review, a crippled monkey gets a free banana. I — Bobby Adair

Too many people miss out on real love because they're too busy waiting for the ONE to show up — Alexandra Potter

When I heard the book (Thomas Friedman's latest) was actually coming out, I started to worry. Among other things, I knew I would be asked to write the review. The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. — Matt Taibbi

I had written a book of short stories which was published under the title of "Uncle Tom's Children". When the review of that book began to appear, I realized that I had made an awful naive mistake. I found that I had written a book which even bankers' daughters could read and weep over and feel good about. I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears. — Richard Wright

If a reviewer is beating me up, I just say, 'Oh well, my writing is not to his or her taste.' And that's as far as it goes. Because I will simultaneously read a review where somebody says, 'Oh my God, I had so much fun reading this book and I learned so much.' — Dan Brown

Hitchcock's debut novel introduces 14-year-old Jessie Pearl, who endures more than her fair share of hardships, beginning with the death of her mother. Opening in 1922, the story follows the daily activities on the family's North Carolina tobacco farm. ...Hitchcock's story is gently and lovingly written, with elements drawn from her own family history. Its detailed honesty about the particular struggles of the period, especially for strong women (Maude, a no-nonsense midwife, is particularly memorable), is significant.
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY — Publishers Weekly

I never expected to be in the papers. I personally never expected to be in the papers. The height of my ambition for these books was, well frankly, to get reviewed. A lot of children's books don't even get reviewed.. forget good review, bad review. Personally, no, I never expected to be in the papers so it's an odd experience when it happens to you . — J.K. Rowling

One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone. At least in my case, the first paragraph is a kind of sample of what the rest of the book is going to be. That's why writing a book of short stories is much more difficult than writing a novel. Every time you write a short story, you have to begin all over again. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I am never much interested in the effects of what I write ... I seldom read with any attention the reviews of my ... books. Two times out of three I know something about the reviewer, and in very few cases have I any respect for his judgments. Thus his praise, if he praises me, leaves me unmoved. I can't recall any review that has even influenced me in the slightest. I live in sort of a vacuum, and I suspect that most other writers do, too. It is hard to imagine one of the great ones paying any serious attention to contemporary opinion. — H.L. Mencken

One of the things I hear a lot from people is how they found my book, or how they've shared it with other people.
This always warms my bitter old heart, not just because I like selling more books, (though I do) but because reccomending a book to a friend is one of the most sincere forms of flattery there is. If you read someone I wrote and like it enough to tell a friend, that means I've done something right. That means more to me than any sort of professional review ... . — Patrick Rothfuss

If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life. — Gough Whitlam

I've never yet read a review of one of my own books that I couldn't have written much better myself. — Edward Abbey

But this month is all about CITY OF JASMINE which I hope you already have in your hot little hands. My favorite review snippet? KIRKUS REVIEWS said it's "part screwball comedy".
I can't tell you how much time I spent with Carole Lombard and William Powell and Irene Dunne when I was writing it. I adore the 30s comedies for their light-hearted take on relationships and adventure - and the glamorous settings and occasional dash of intrigue only heighten the magic. (Did you know that Nicholas Brisbane from my Lady Julia series was named for THE THIN MAN's Nick Charles? And apologies to Dashiell Hammett, but I fell in love with the film long before I read the book and appreciated how much it had been lightened in the adaptation!) So when you're reading CITY OF JASMINE, give some thought to who you'd like to see playing Evie and Gabriel - I'd love to hear who you'd cast in your own production. — Deanna Raybourn

If a book I've committed myself to review turns out to be 'disappointing' I make an effort to present it objectively to the reader, including a good number of excerpts from the text, so that the reader might form his or her own opinion independent of my own. — Joyce Carol Oates

Nearly every writer writes a book with a great amount of attention and intention and hopes and dreams. And it's important to take that effort seriously and to recognize that a book may have taken ten years of a writer's life, that the writer has put heart and soul into it. And it behooves us, as book-review-editors, to treat those books with the care and attention they deserve, and to give the writer that respect."
Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review editor, in a Poets & Writer's interview
(something for all reviewers to think about) — Madeline Sharples

_'You shouldn't say thank you for a good review,' said Harriet. 'That would imply that one had done a favour to the author, whereas one has simply done justice to the book.'_ — Dorothy L. Sayers

A good critic is trying to tell you what she has learned about herself from the reading of a particular piece of literature. A bad reviewer is often trying to tell you how smart he is by declaring whether or not he liked a particular book. If he liked the book, then this is the kind of book a superior person likes, and vice versa. He might try to explain why he didn't like it, but the review is really just a tautology. "I didn't like this book because it is bad," is equivalent to "This book is bad because I didn't like it. — Kevin Guilfoile