Author Reputation Quotes

One, I have a wonderful publisher, Black Sparrow Press; as long as they exist, they will keep me in print. And they claim they sell very respectable numbers of my books, so I guess, and it's true, every place I go, my books are in libraries and on bookshelves.

There's a great book about that, "The Breaking Point" by Stephen Koch . It won't improve your opinion of [Ernest] Hemingway.

I have been called 'The American De Maupassant.' Well, I never wrote a filthy word in my life, and I don't like to be compared to a filthy writer.

Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.

I want people to read good work. If I see someone reading a book by Lorrie Moore or Jennifer Egan, I'm psyched. If I see them reading X Latin American Writer Who Sucks, I'm not psyched. But in terms of news, I do think that's important.

Wilkie Collins was a rival and competitor of Dickens. His novel Moonstone sold more copies at the time than Dickens' last two books. But that meant nothing in the long run. Right now, to be honest, Wilkie Collins is what he deserved to be back then: a footnote, an almost lost memory. And he knew he would become that.

It's not at all uncommon for a writer to get a ton of publicity for one book and then not get as much for the next one. I don't worry about that because I try to worry about the one single part of the job I can control: the writing of the book. If I do that well, I feel, good tidings generally will follow and readers will stick with me.

You have to go into rehab after doing a David Walliams book. David is such an important man; publishers rate him very, very highly, His books usually go straight to the bestseller number one spot on the day of publication. He is a hugely important writer as far as HarperCollins, his publishers, are concerned.

They like my books better in England than in France; a translation would be very successful there.

I've been around long enough now that people who don't get into the outrageousness, the over-the-top stuff, they know not to buy my books anymore.

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

When people write a novel, they want to have that reach and that impact. To get it with a first novel, you can either see it as an albatross or a calling card.

Being an author of banned books is cool, I've decided.

Of course all children's literature is not fantastic, so all fantastic books need not be children's books. It is still possible, even in an age so ferociously anti-romantic as our own, to write fantastic stories for adults: though you will usually need to have made a name in some more fashionable kind of literature before anyone will publish them.

My books have sold largely in England, have been translated into many languages, and passed through several editions in foreign countries. I have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years.

Anyone buying this book is going to be out a tidy sum if he is sucked in by the title. I wish I could write a real sexy book that would be barred from the mails. Apparently nothing whets a reader's appetite for literature more than the news that the author has been thrown into a federal pokey for disturbing the libido of millions of Americans.

I think the response I get to one 'New Yorker' cover outweighs five books that I publish.

If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.

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

You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.

When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.

That's the miracle of Amazon! It's like Internet dating. In the early days, you could get slimed as an author on Amazon by someone bearing a grudge, or jealous, or whatever. And because there were so few reviews posted, this stank.

Writing a book makes you an expert in the field. At the very least, when you hand someone a book you wrote, it's more impressive than handing a business card.

It's quite humbling when you see the list of writers who have been president of PEN and you know some of the things they've done.

I regretted making a comment about Dave Eggers. I’ve never said anything about McSweeneys except that I admire what it is, and I think it’s great that they keep people interested in literature.