Author Evaluation Quotes

I cannot stand Tolstoy, and reading him was the most boring literary duty I ever had to perform, his philosophy and his sense of life are not merely mistaken, but evil, and yet, from a purely literary viewpoint, on his own terms, I have to evaluate him as a good writer.

I've been writing about James Fenimore Cooper. He was not a writer. Here was a man who was 30 years old and had never put anything more than his signature on paper.

Half a King is my favorite book by Joe Abercrombie so far, and that's saying something.

It is the custom when praising a Russian writer to do so at the expense of all other Russian writers.

One must read all writers twice--the good as well as the bad. The one kind will be recognized; the other, unmasked.

Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he is of the nineteenth century, and that glaringly.

While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate him by his best.

I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.

I happen to think Martin Cruz Smith is very good.

Ian McEwan is a very good writer; the first half of Atonement alone would ensure him a lasting place in English letters.