Quotes About Reviewer

A reviewer's lot is not always an easy one. I can remember flogging myself to finish Harold Brodkey's 'The Runaway Soul' despite the novel's consummate, unmitigated tedium.

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.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

There was one reviewer from the 'New York Times,' I forget his name, who said I was 'death warmed over.' I wrote him back that I knew more about death than he did. The 'Times' fired him, put him in the cooking department!

Let's face it: Sadness and evil are always more believable than happiness and love. When a movie reviewer calls a film realistic, everyone knows what that means--it means the movie has an unhappy ending.

One reviewer dubbed my first book, 'Getting Rid of Matthew,' 'chick noir,' and another called it 'anti chick lit,' both of which I loved.

The reviewer is a singularly detested enemy because he is, unlike the hapless artist, invulnerable.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

I generally only eat one meal a day, which is pretty unusual for a restaurant reviewer. It's not that I have a problem with food; I'll eat anything that doesn't involve a bet, a dare, or an initiation ceremony.

The power of the print reviewer is one of those urban myths. There have always been shows that slipped under the critical radar to become popular successes: 'Tobacco Road', 'Abie's Irish Rose' and our old friend 'Spider-Man', which got the worst reviews in theatre history and is still apparently going strong.

except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate

My mother had not acted for ten years. Not since a reviewer wrote that her portrayal of Lady Macbeth put him in mind of an exasperated society hostess burdened with unmannerly guests who had lost the new tennis balls, left the bathrooms in a mess, and finished the gin.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

I imagined how much pressure he must have felt as a reviewer who could destroy entire careers. Who would want that sort of power? Especially over something as simple and charming as food?

Life is made up of strange coincidences, said Thorndyke. Nobody but a reviewer of novels is ever really surprised at a coincidence.

I still viewed myself as a reviewer when I was on radio. Was it appropriate for me? I think the answer is it's only inappropriate if I allowed it to affect my film reviewing. I don't think you will find any studio that said, 'Yeah, he went easy on us because he was shopping a script.'

Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label -- to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

This is Mindy. Malia was reading her book in Hawaii." My book! Malia Obama was reading my book! The one Amazon.com reviewer "My2Cents" called "sort of meh"! I was walking on air.

For Thanksgiving, a quote from my book, The Restaurant Reviewer, with deepest thanks for all the bounty: In the kitchen here ingredients are cherished. This restaurant remembers that food tastes good.