Quotes About Literature

I've never been a great fan of crime fiction. I read Agatha Christie in my youth, but that's all.

A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!

Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.

What I am best at is reading a book and then writing a critical essay.

I love crime fiction, and I'm proud to be part of it, but I'm not without criticism for my own genre.

If people aren't creating literature, there would be nothing for people to criticize.

Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

It's nice when critics say 'Emperor of the Air' is an important book of stories.

Some books are well-received with critics; other books sell.

Critics, how I would love if you could clear the word 'sentimental' from your minds.

Malorie Blackman's 'Noughts & Crosses' was my favourite as a kid - it was the first time I'd heard of interracial courtship outside of my family.

I'm crushed by the responsibility of writing a satirical book.

I cry at the end of every book.

I cry in movies a lot, and over books.

I'm a cult writer now. I have a cult readership.

Fiction needs writers and readers, and writers should cultivate both.

I think the blues is the best literature that we as blacks have created since we've been here. I call it our 'sacred book.' What I've attempted to do is to mine that field, to mine those cultural ideas and attitudes and give them to my characters.

I want to show how rich chess is and what kind of history it has, through culture, literature, and education.

Like many writers, I'm usually more interested in reading about authors than their actual works. We're more curious to know how they were written than what they are like to read.

The poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened.

I tend not to read reviews; there's too much out there in cyberspace.

I can always tell when I'm about to start writing. I go through cycles in reading. When I'm beginning to start to write something, I start reading what I think of as good literature. I read things with wonderful language.