Quotes & Sayings About Writing Reviews

After you finish (writing a book) you are intensely depressed. It doesn't much matter whether the reviews are good or not. You feel empty, a field lying fallow, and you must let it stay fallow for a while. You love a book when it's being written. You are so close to it. You are the only person who knows it and it's still full of potential ... Then, suddenly, there's the dreadful day when you have the printed proof texts ... It's a feeling of death, really. — John Fowles

For the movie review columns, I always knew exactly what I was going to write about - the movies. — Fran Lebowitz

My book sales are way down today. Also, I've received two scathing reviews. One of them calls me a purveyor of insipid wet-dreams. — Nenia Campbell

Protect your voice and your vision. If going on the Internet and reading Internet reviews is bad for you, don't do it. ... Do what gets you to write and not what blocks you. ... Don't take any guff off anybody. — Anne Rice

The ideology of liberal humanism found expression in the earliest reviews of Hardy's writing and remained a dominant force until the explosion of literary theory in the 1980s. It is a broad and still influential category. It endorses the moral value of the individual, and the strength of the human spirit. It prefers the integrity of an organic rural society to the anonymity and materialism of an urbanised and technological world. Applied to fiction, this ideology involves the naturalisation of the novel's world and its values, and the recognition of fictional character as presenting a unified subject. — Geoffrey Harvey

Just remember: it's worth all the negative reviews to get your book in the hands of those who'll love it. — Kira Hawke

I owe all my originality, such as it is, to my determination not to be a literary man. Instead of belonging to a literary club I belong to a municipal council. Instead of drinking and discussing authors and reviews, I sit on committees with capable practical greengrocers and bootmakers ... Keep away from books and from men who get their ideas from books, and your own books will always be fresh. — George Bernard Shaw

I have little or no concern at how people interpret my writing, my only concern is to write it. — Robert Black

The critic's aim should be to interpret the work they are writing about and help readers appreciate it, by defining and analysing those qualities that make it precious and by indicating the angle of visions from which its beauties are visible. But many critics do not realize their function. They aim not to appreciate, but to judge; they seek first to draw lines about literature and then bully readers into accepting these laws. — David Cecil

It's very hard, I think, for critics to write positive reviews, because there's not that much to say about something you like. You can kind of say 'I really like that band' and then if you're forced to fill up the rest of an article, you've got to start saying heady things. It's much easier to say negative things in a review. — Mitchell Hurwitz

I don't read reviews if I know in advance they're negative, because I can't have my confidence undermined when I'm writing. — Christopher Moore

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

(Feedback) People become addicted to it. That's why journalism is so popular, because you want to hear, every day, what people think of what you just wrote. I think a little patience on that front can be good, too. — Zadie Smith

If a seminary or Christian college has a wise provost or dean or department chair, he or she will realize that they need some faculty who are master teachers but publish little, and some scholars who can both teach and publish, and some who would be better just being research professors. It takes a variety of faculty to make up a good school. But alas, even in schools that have such administrators, promotion and sabbaticals are often based on publications or planned publications, not just on reviews of one's classroom performances. Thus, some scholars who find research and writing a huge cross to bear are forced to carry that cross all the way to Golgotha Publishing House in order to get promoted. It really ought not to be that way at a Christian school, where the main goal should be training students or budding clergy in the way that they should go. — Ben Witherington III

I am really very grateful for this Award. It is one of the first given to a woman, and to two women at that. When I first started getting work published, I used to have wistful thoughts at the way all important awards were given to men. Women, I used to think, could be as innovative, imaginative and productive as possible - and women were the ones mostly at work in the field of fantasy for children and young adults - but only let a man enter the field, and people instantly regarded what he had to say and what he did as more Important. He got respectful reviews as well as awards, even if what he was doing - which it often was - was imitating the women. But you have changed all that.
Thank you for being so enlightened.
Women, large-minded, formidable women, have played an almost exclusive part in helping my career. I have hardly ever dealt with a man - at least, when it came to publishing: — Diana Wynne Jones

There were also some cruel reviews by women, but the tone of the male reviewers, sometimes hysterical, was different. I have suffered, but I don't want to name names-but there have been men who have seemed to want to destroy me or my writing, men I don't even know. — Marguerite Young

To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practices on others — Samuel Johnson

Most everything influences my work. Working in a used bookstore. Going for walks in the woods and peering at mushrooms. Writing reviews. Coming from frumpy, grumpy, faded-at-the-knees Winnipeg. — Ariel Gordon

When we talk about reviews, what we are really talking about is just a market report - it's like reading about the new Lexus. You have to know what the guy writing the review cares about to understand his take. Does he like sports cars, or does he like Bentleys? — Mike Nichols

Lazy reviewers look up other people's reviews and they write the same thing, so you get people writing crap based on crap. — Joni Mitchell

Ultimately one has to pity these poor souls who know every secret about writing, directing, designing, producing, and acting but are stuck in those miserable day jobs writing reviews. Will somebody help them, please? — David Ives

Online review sites are the slushpiles of feedback. — S. Kelley Harrell

I've always felt as if writing a novel is like giving birth. After the process is over, I am emotionally exhausted. But then the work's not done. I have to then raise the book to adulthood, through marketing and giveaways and pandhandling for reviews (its college education). And even while I'm nurturing it into something that is well adjusted and lovable, I've got other "kids" that need equal attention. It truly is work. My hat is off to real parents everywhere, who raise human children and novel ones at the same time. You are amazing. — Ash Gray

Somehow, the whole idea of me writing art reviews was just too much of a complicated thought, but I liked art, and later on I just realized that it would be perhaps a pleasure, and so I decided to do it for 'Art in America' - a lot. — Eileen Myles

I've been surprised at how much an unknown like myself can accomplish just by reaching out to people and pleading my case. Quotes for the book cover, reviews and interviews, readings and radio appearances - all this by simply moving ahead and making contact with folks I thought might enjoy the writing. — Patrick DeWitt

Remember, we all make our work available in a commercial transaction, the terms of which we, ourselves, dictate. If we give it away for free, that's our decision, and there is no refuge in the lame defense, "what do you want for nothing?" The buyer does not waive his right to express his opinion."
[Thick Skin and Bad Reviews, Blog post, June 26, 2013] — Pete Morin

We sometimes reveal how ignorant or bored we were when we read a book by giving it 5-stars. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I'm not very popular, because they're bleak and they're mournful and all the rest of it and I get censorious reviews. But I'm only writing fiction. I'm not making munitions, so I think it's acceptable. — Anita Brookner

I think at the beginning of one's writing life, negative reviews are what one does to get attention and stake out your territory. It's also often a mistake. — Darryl Pinckney

This is why very often you find educated people in the media who look at spiritual books but they are so identified with their thought process, they don't get it. They write reviews or articles and they miss the whole point. They can't see the essence. It's not their fault; it's not them personally. It's the human condition and its mind-identified state. And intelligence in itself doesn't help. You can have two or three Ph.D.s; it doesn't get you any closer to spiritual realization. In fact, you might be more distant. — Eckhart Tolle

The critics have been writing me off for 20 years. That's nothing new. As far as I know I still have plenty of fans and sell lots of records. Do I care what critics say about me? No, and I don't read reviews. — Madonna Ciccone

Books are savaged and careers destroyed by surly snots who write anonymous reviews and publishers can't be bothered to protest this institutionalized corruption. — Warren Murphy

Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookiepants Hypotenuse."' Or else they get unbearably cutesy: 'My cat Ootsywootums has given me all my best ideas, hasn't oo, squeezums? — Connie Willis

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody. — Oscar Wilde

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.
(writing about US President Warren G. Harding) — H.L. Mencken

It is a still stranger thing that there is nothing so delightful in the world as telling stories. It is far pleasanter than writing reviews of famous novels. — Virginia Woolf

If you have too good a time writing hostile reviews, you'll injure not only your sensibility but your soul. — David Lehman

The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes
McCarthy and Stalin
that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town. — Ishmael Reed

Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

Probably writers should forget what it was like to write the last novel, and the one before that, and the one before that, or we should all be plumbers. It must be good to be a plumber. Everyone is happy to see you, and no one reviews your work. — Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

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

It's weird being an author because it's different than writing songs. You put so much more of yourself out there to be judged because it's a memoir. So when the reviews come in, they all feel really personal. Some people are just going to hate you no matter what. Personally, I never believe good reviews. — Dean Wareham

My stories were translated and had many reviews before I had an interview with any international or Arab newspaper. If the stories hadn't succeeded, you wouldn't have asked me my position on Arab festivals and I wouldn't have been interested in the festivals anyway, because I would be in seclusion, writing. — Hassan Blasim

Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Writing prejudicial, off-putting reviews is a precise exercise in applied black magic. The reviewer can draw free-floating disagreeable associations to a book by implying that the book is completely unimportant without saying exactly why, and carefully avoiding any clear images that could capture the reader's full attention. — William S. Burroughs

I don't revise a lot when writing short stories. As far as the novel, I definitely thought more about plot. Honestly, I'm still pretty confused about what "plot" means. I've been reading some of my Goodreads reviews and one reader noted that the The Last Days of California "reads like a short story stretched to the breaking point, padded and brought into novel range ... " I don't know what people want, really. — Mary J. Miller

That is, I fancy, the true doctrine on the subject of Tales of Terror and such things, which unless a man of letters do well and truly believe, without doubt he will end by blowing his brains out or by writing badly. Man, the central pillar of the world must be upright and straight; around him all the trees and beasts and elements and devils may crook and curl like smoke if they choose. All really imaginative literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul. — G.K. Chesterton

I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book ... One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities. — Anton Chekhov

A writer hopes never to offend, but if he must, pray let him offend the gods before the reviewers. — Chila Woychik

I see the author as the person who has written; the writer, the one involved in the process of writing. And they're not necessarily friends. The writer is the one I want to reinforce; the author would just feed on the reviews - so I'm in favour of starving him. — Edward St. Aubyn

Authors worry. We worry about writing. Worry about our editors, our agents, our reviews, and our readers. We worry about everything, including all forms of social media including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and personal websites. — David Macinnis Gill

The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't. — William Faulkner

Do not start me on The Da Vinci Code ... a novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name.
(Discussion at Woodruff Auditorium in Lawrence, KS; October 7, 2005.) — Salman Rushdie

You won't believe this. 99% of reviews on GoodBetterBestReads are written by less than one percent of the members.
Did you hear that? 99%! Let's repeat it. 99%. Let's repeat it. 99%.
Now, the thing is, we thought that by getting one percent to do all the writing, we could sell to the 100%.
We placed a lot of trust in the one percent. Can you see our dilemma?
A lot of people's welfare depended on the one percent.
What would happen to our cocktails and our cars and our condos, if the one percent staged a strike? — G.R. Reader

American travel writing is very healthy. I'm always flicking through the reviews and I see plenty of travel writing - and an impressive line up and continual demand. — John Gimlette

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

Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce ... Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too. — Sarah Waters

Every writer prefers good reviews over bad ones, and every writer wants to have lots of readers. But if it doesn't happen, that's fine too. Perhaps I won't throw a party then; I'll simply go home and keep writing. — J.K. Rowling

I mean when the book first came out it was not a bestseller, but it got good reviews and at that point I was done writing about Andy, done talking about Andy ... but now, I kind of love it. All these smart, attractive young people think I'm cool! So here I am a guy in his sixties with all of these interesting friends in their twenties. It's very stimulating and keeps me very much in the present. — Bob Colacello

If people wrote their reviews on paper and put them into a real, physical library, I am sure that the Goodreads administrators would be very reluctant to pull them down from shelves and burn them. When you can get rid of a piece of writing just by clicking on a few links, there's a temptation to believe that it's less serious. But it isn't. It's just less clear what you've done. — G.R. Reader

The idea to make hotel reviews the form of the novel came first.So I just started writing hotel reviews and tried to come up with a consistent voice. — Rick Moody

The worst reviews, by my mind, are those from individuals who enjoy entertaining themselves by writing something bad about books they actually never read, which is as clear as day from what they're saying. It's even more puzzling for an author to check some of these "honest" reviewers' pages and see that they created their profile with one goal in mind; to post you a bad review, as there's nothing else they wanted to rate. — Sahara Sanders

I have a confession to make. For years, I earned a living - or a sort of living - writing negative book reviews. — Lee Siegel

To all those whom seek the iron words of the community: if your book is good, it will stand on its own. Be it a short story, a novel, a novella, a chapter book, a poetry book, a chapbook, a manga or a graphic novel ... it will seek reviews by itself. You need to do nothing with it. Do nothing but write. Give up review seeking and focus on writing, for that is what becomes you in the end. — L'Poni Baldwin

As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split. — Kurt Vonnegut

You start wondering if you deserved those high reviews on your books or if people just pitied you and went "Poor sod. Here's a five star review so you don't hang yourself in the garage. — Ash Gray

It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends. — Samuel Johnson

Then I realized that I was falling victim to one of the fallacies of the bad reviewer (whose habits we already discussed at length in yesterday's commentary). I was wishing that Hamid had written a different book than he had. How I might have written this story is completely irrelevant. It would be like dismissing The Godfather because I wished it were a musical. The novel needs to be considered on its own terms. — Kevin Guilfoile

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

We are so programmed to feel that our emotions are the most important thing in the Universe ... We write, produce and act in the story of me. And then we write reviews - and read them and get more depressed. All we can do is let go, and that comes from training. And then we spend less and less time in the darker spaces. — Krishna Das

For obvious reasons, the relationship between novelists, the reviewing establishment and critics in general is chronically, and often acutely, edgy. A kind of low-intensity warfare prevails, with outbreaks of savagery. It is partly an ownership issue. Who, other than its creator, is to say what a work of fiction means or is worth? It can take years to write a novel and only a few hours for a critic, or a reviewer rushing for a tight deadline, to trash it. — John Sutherland

Park your ego and listen to your readers. They can be your best friend or your worst enemy. But chances are you'll learn something from them. — Eliza Green

The American critic Dale Peck, author of Hatchet Jobs (2004), argues that reviewing finds its true character in critical GBH such as Fischer's [review of Martin Amis's Yellow Dog]. It represents a return to the prehistoric origins of reviewing in Zoilism - a kind of pelting of pretentious literature with dung, lest the writers get above themselves; it is to the novelist what the gown of humiliation was to the Roman politician - a salutary ordeal. Less grandly, bad reviews are fun, so long as you are not the author. There is, it must be admitted, a kind of furtive blood sport pleasure in seeing a novelist suffer. You read on. Whereas most of us stop reading at the first use of the word 'splendid' or 'marvellous' in a review. — John Sutherland

I really don't want somebody writing something positive about me if they don't believe in it. I'd rather somebody write something real mean. I like reading bad stuff, it gets me excited. In fact, the only reviews I keep are the bad ones 'cause I think they're the cool ones. — Patti Smith

I think people ease into this careerist professionalism, so if you're a writer it's your job to manufacture books as opposed to writing them and to go to festivals and spend your life emotionally invested in reviews or the awards. You have to shrink your universe in a way. To me, it's the opposite. — Arundhati Roy

The truth is, as much as I loved writing restaurant reviews, it always felt very self-indulgent to me. It was so much fun, I loved doing it, but there's so much else to say about food. — Ruth Reichl

I don't read reviews any more, but I'm told by my publisher who gives me an account of what people have been writing and it's been a very split kind of response. — Paul Auster

Frankly, anybody who's going to kill themselves because of a bad review has no business writing a novel in the first place. — Robert Galbraith

Writing blog posts is totally freeing in a whole new way for me. I'm not writing it for any editor, and I'm not being paid, so I can say whatever I want. I don't have to justify the cost of a book to readers; they get it for free, so expectations are naturally low. (And no one-star reviews!) — Kate Christensen

Either way, you wrote the book and now you're complaining about the reviews I'm giving it," I quipped.
"Fair enough." He held up his hands, "I'm going to start writing the sequel which will be considerably less narcissistic. Will you read it?"
"Only if every other girl on campus hasn't. — Tarryn Fisher

Sometimes writing about a TV show, or a movie, or a book, is the most honest way to write about yourself. — Aaron Burch

Money talks. And writes. And publishes. And reviews. But it can't read. — Jack Woodford

The reason for writing that essay was less a personal agenda than an attempt to explain my unease with the general label of "immigrant literature" after I had read quite a number of reviews (in different countries) involving books written by 'immigrants.' — Sasa Stanisic

The only reason I didn't kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn't decide which one to jumo into. — Wilfrid Sheed

You've got to be willing to read other people's code, then write your own, then have other people review your code. — Bill Gates

[When asked if he had ever learned anything about his work from film criticism]
No. To see a film once and write a review is an absurdity. Yet very few critics ever see a film twice or write about films from a leisurely, thoughtful perspective. The reviews that distinguish most critics, unfortunately, are those slambang pans which are easy to write and fun to write and absolutely useless. There's not much in a critic showing off how clever he is at writing silly, supercilious gags about something he hates. — Stanley Kubrick

Writing is exhilarating, but reading reviews is not. I've been really devastated by 'good' reviews because they misunderstand the project of the book. It can be strangely galvanising to get a 'bad' one. — Eleanor Catton

I write mostly positive reviews. I don't write about places that don't interest me. — Jonathan Gold

If you read reviews that you think by their very nature are not respectful of the actresses involved or not appreciating the work as it should be, I think you should write to reviewers or comment and say, "Are you kidding me?" — Romola Garai

A poet or novelist will invent interruptions to avoid long consecutive days at the ordained page; and of these the most pernicious are other kinds of writing
articles, lectures, reviews, a wide correspondence. — Shirley Hazzard

I tend to write things and review it afterwards and realise what comes out. I very rarely ever write something and have to take it back. — Ellie Goulding

You know, since the reviews have come out and people have reacted to it, I've realized that is in a sense what has happened. But as I was writing them, I didn't feel a part of any tradition. I think that would have been too overwhelming, in a sense. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Books are portals for the imagination, whether one is reading or writing, and unless one is keeping a private journal, writing something that no one is likely to read is like trying to have a conversation when you're all alone. Readers extend and enhance the writer's created work, and they deepen the colors of it with their own imagination and life experiences. In a sense, there's a revision every time one's words are read by someone else, just as surely as there is whenever the writer edits. Nothing is finished or completely dead until both sides quit and it's no longer a part of anyone's thoughts. So it seems almost natural that a lifelong avid reader occasionally wants to construct a mindscape from scratch after wandering happily in those constructed by others. If writing is a collaborative communication between author and reader, then surely there's a time and a place other than writing reviews for readers to 'speak' in the human literary conversation. — P.J. O'Brien

Listen to your critics. Because if you go through life denying what they say, you'll never be a good writer. The only way to improve, is to listen to those who tell you what you need to work on — Adam Snowflake

My books have all been very deeply felt. You don't spend eight years of your life working on a trendy knockoff. In that sense I've been serious. But I don't do lots of things that other serious writers do. I don't write book reviews. I don't sit on panels about the state of the novel. I don't go to writer conferences. I don't teach writing seminars. I don't hang out at Yaddo or MacDowell. I'm not concerned with my reputation as a writer and where I stand relative to other writers. I'm not competitive or professionally ambitious. I don't think about my work and my career in an overarching or systematic way. I don't think about myself, as I think most writers do, as progressing toward some ideal of greatness. There's no grand plan. All I know is that I write the books I want to write. All that other stuff is meaningless to me. — Bret Easton Ellis

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be. — Christopher Hitchens

Many people have been protesting against what they describe as censorship on Goodreads. I disgree. In fact, I would like to say that I welcome the efforts that Goodreads management is making to improve the deplorably low quality of reviewing on this site.
Please, though, just give me clearer guidelines. I want to know how to use my writing to optimize Amazon sales, especially those of sensitive self-published authors. This is a matter of vital importance to me, and outweighs any possible considerations of making my reviews interesting, truthful, creative or entertaining. — Manny Rayner

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